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THE 



EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 



BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 



THE 



EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 



OF 



BIBLICAL THEOLOGY 



UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 

NEW YORK 



<joHH 



W t 



PRINTED FOR 

&f)e Union fttjeolcgital Seminars 

NEW YORK: MDCCCXCI 



The Library 

of Congress 



WASHINGTON 






Copyright, 1891, by 
THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 



I. The Establishment of the Chair by the Directors of 
the Seminary in accordance with the endowment of 
Charles Butler, LL.D. ; and the choice of the incum- 
bent, Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D.D. 

II. The Inauguration Services, January 20, 1891 ; with the 
Charge delivered by the Rev. David R. Frazer, D.D. 

III. The Inaugural Address, on The Authority of Holy 

Scripture. 

IV. The Position and Importance of Biblical Theology. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EDWARD 

ROBINSON CHAIR OF BIBLICAL 

THEOLOGY 

At the regular meeting of the Board of Directors of 
the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New 
York, held November n, 1890, the following pream- 
ble and resolution were adopted by a unanimous vote : 

Whereas, The Honorable Charles Butler, LL.D., President 
of the Board of Directors of this Seminary, has made provision 
for a permanent fund for the purpose of establishing and en- 
dowing a Chair in this Seminary, to be called the Edward Rob- 
inson Chair of Biblical Theology ; 

Now therefore, Resolved, That a new professorship shall be 
and is hereby created, which shall be called the " Edward Rob- 
inson Chair of Biblical Theology"; that the income of the 
endowment of one hundred thousand dollars given to this 
Seminary by the said Charles Butler in the manner mentioned 
in his bond, dated April 25, 1890, shall be applied solely to the 
support of said Chair, according to the provisions of said bond. 

The President of the Faculty suggested that the 
Board, in courtesy, should ask Dr. Butler to express 
to us freely his wishes with reference to the action just 
taken. 



2 EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

Thereupon President Butler addressed the Board of 
Directors as follows : 

"The formal establishment by the Board of 'The 
Edward Robinson Chair of Biblical Theology* fulfils 
the object desired in the provision which I have made 
for its endowment. I beg to express my satisfaction 
and gratitude for this action. It is in accord with the 
views of the distinguished Christian scholar in whose 
memory the Chair is founded. In a letter to the Board, 
dated January 20, 1837, accepting the Professorship of 
Sacred Literature, he said : ' The Constitution prop- 
erly requires every Professor to declare that he believes 
the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be 
the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and 
practice. This is placing the Bible in its true position 
as the only foundation of Christian theology. It fol- 
lows as a necessary consequence that the study of the 
Bible, as taught in the department of Biblical Litera- 
ture, must be the foundation of all right theological 
education.' This new Chair of Biblical Theology seems 
to me to realize the sentiment embodied in this quota- 
tion, in a form which, if he were now present with us, 
would receive his benediction. It embalms his memory 
indissolubly with the life of this Seminary, and will 
ever be an inspiration to its students in their l search 
of the Scriptures.' 

" In regard to the incumbent of this Chair, I avail of 
the courtesy of the Board to express my wish that it 
may be one who sat as a pupil at the feet of that emi- 
nent teacher, and I regard it as a felicity to the Semi- 
nary that there is one here who has been trained within 
its walls, and who, by his ripe scholarship and purity of 
character in Christian faith and practice, has won the 
confidence and affection of his associate Professors, of 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 3 

this Board of Directors, and of the students who have 
come under his teaching during these years of faithful 
and devoted service. 

" From what I have said, you will anticipate that my 
wishes will be fully gratified in the appointment of the 
Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D., as eminently qualified to 
fill this Chair. In this expression of preference, it gives 
me the greatest pleasure to say that I do but voice the 
views and wishes of our late revered President of the 
Faculty, Roswell D. Hitchcock. Dr. Briggs was his 
choice for this Chair. 

" I cannot doubt that the highest interests of this 
Seminary, and, what is more, those of the Redeemer's 
kingdom on earth, will be promoted by this realization 
of the plans of these two Christian scholars, both as re- 
gards the foundation of the Chair and the selection of 
the suggested incumbent." 



THE APPOINTMENT OF THE INCUMBENT. 

At the conclusion of President Butler's address, 
Henry Day, Esq., offered the following resolution, 
which was unanimously adopted : 

Resolved, That Professor Charles A. Briggs, D.D., be trans- 
ferred from the Davenport Professorship of Hebrew and the 
Cognate Languages to the Edward Robinson Chair of Biblical 
Theology. 

Professor Briggs, having been duly advised of the 
action above recorded, addressed a communication to 
the Board, under date of January 7, 1891, accepting the 
new Chair to which he had been transferred. 



4 EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

120 West 93D St., New York, 
January 7, 1891. 

Gentlemen of the Board of Directors of the Union 
Theological Seminary, New York : 

I thank you for the mark of confidence expressed in 
your choice of me to fill the Edward Robinson Profes- 
sorship of Biblical Theology. There is no Chair that 
so well suits my tastes and my studies for the past 
twenty-five years. Under the advice of the Faculty, I 
have been building up the department of Biblical The- 
ology for some years past. But I had reached the 
limit of new work. I could not advance further until 
relieved of the Hebrew work. In accepting the new 
Chair, I propose to push the work of the depart- 
ment rapidly forward, and to cover the whole ground 
of the Chair at as early a date as possible. I give over 
the work of the Hebrew Chair to my pupil, colleague, 
and friend, Dr. Brown, with confidence, that building 
on the foundations I have laid, he will make marked 
improvement upon my work. 

Biblical Theology is, at the present time, the vantage 
ground for the solution of those important problems in 
religion, doctrine, and morals that are compelling the 
attention of the men of our times. The Bible is the 
Word of God, and its authority is divine authority that 
determines the faith and life of men. Biblical scholars 
have been long held in bondage to ecclesiasticism and 
dogmatism. But modern Biblical criticism has won the 
battle of freedom. The accumulations of long periods of 
traditional speculation and dogmatism have been in large 
measure removed, and the Bible itself stands before the 
men of our time in a commanding position, such as it 
never has enjoyed before. On all sides it is asked, not 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 5 

what do the creeds teach, what do the theologians say, 
what is the authority of the Church, but what does the 
Bible itself teach us ? It is the office of Biblical Theology 
to answer this question. It is the culmination of the work 
of Exegesis. It rises on a complete induction through 
all the departments of Biblical study to a comprehen- 
sive grasp of the Bible as a whole, in the unity and 
variety of the sum of its teaching. It draws the line 
with the teaching of the Bible. It fences off from the 
Scriptures all the speculations, all the dogmatic elabo- 
rations, all the doctrinal adaptations that have been made 
in the history of doctrine in the Church. It does not 
deny their propriety and importance, but it insists up- 
on the three-fold distinction as necessary to truth and 
theological honesty, that the theology of the Bible is 
one thing, the only infallible authority ; the theology 
of the creeds is another thing, having simply ecclesias- 
tical authority; and the theology of the theologians, 
or Dogmatic Theology, is a third thing, which has no 
more authority than any other system of human con- 
struction. It is well known that until quite recent times, 
and even at present in some quarters, the creeds have 
lorded it over the Scriptures, and the dogmaticians 
have lorded it over the creeds, so that in its last analy- 
sis the authority in the Church has been, too often, the 
authority of certain theologians. Now, Biblical Theol- 
ogy aims to limit itself strictly to the theology of the 
Bible itself. Biblical theologians are fallible men, and 
doubtless it is true, that>they err in their interpretation 
of the Scriptures, as have others ; but it is the aim of 
the discipline to give the theology of the Bible pure 
and simple ; and the inductive and historical methods 
that determine the working of the department are 
certainly favorable to an objective presentation of the 



(J EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

subject, and are unfavorable to the intrusion of subject- 
ive fancies and circumstantial considerations. It will 
be my aim, so long as I remain in the chair, to accom- 
plish this ideal as far as possible. Without fear or 
favor I shall teach the truth of God's Word as I find it. 
The theology of the Bible is much simpler, richer, and 
grander than any of the creeds or dogmatic systems. 
These have been built upon select portions of the Bible, 
and there is a capriciousness of selection in them all. 
But Biblical Theology makes no selection of texts — it 
uses the entire Bible in all its passages, and in every 
single passage, giving each its place and importance in 
the unfolding of divine revelation. To Biblical Theol- 
ogy the Bible is a mine of untold wealth ; treasures, 
new and old, are in its storehouses; all its avenues 
lead, in one way or another, to the presence of the 
living God and the divine Saviour. 

The work of Biblical Theology is conducted on such 
a comprehensive study of the Bible, that while the Pro- 
fessor builds upon a thorough study of the original 
texts, his class must use their English Bibles. A 
thorough study of the English Bible is necessarily in- 
cluded in the course. If the plan of the work is carried 
out, the student will accompany his Professor through 
the entire English Bible during his Seminary course, 
and will be taught to expound a large number of the 
most important passages in the light of all the passages 
leading up to them. 

In conclusion, allow me to express my gratitude to 
the venerable President of the Board of Directors for 
the interest he has ever taken in my work, for the 
honor he has shown me in nominating me for the Chair 
he so generously founded, and for attaching to the 
Chair, with such modesty and consideration, the name 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 7 

of Edward Robinson, my honored teacher, the greatest 
name on the roll of Biblical scholars of America, and 
the most widely known and honored of her professors. 
I shall regard it as my high calling and privilege to 
build on his foundations, and to advance the work that 
he carried on as far as it can be advanced in the cir- 
cumstances of our time. The names of Edward Rob- 
inson and Charles Butler will be entwined into a bond 
of double strength to sustain me in the delicate and 
difficult work that I now undertake to do. 

Faithfully, 

C. A. BRIGGS. 

Arrangements were made for the inauguration of Dr. 
Briggs on Tuesday evening, the 20th of January. The 
Reverend David R. Frazer, D.D., was appointed to de- 
liver the charge on behalf of the Board of Directors. 



II. 

THE INAUGURATION. 

Tuesday Evening, Jan. 20, 1891. 

President Charles Butler, LL.D., presided. After 
devotional exercises, at the request of Mr. Butler, the 
President of the Faculty made a brief preliminary 
statement, as follows : 

" As has been announced, last May the President of 
the Board of Directors of the Union Theological Semi- 
nary, Charles Butler, LL.D., provided for the endow- 
ment of a new Chair in the sum of $100,000. 

" On the basis of this munificent gift, at the recent 
meeting of the Board, the new Professorship was for- 
mally established, to be known, in accordance with the 
request of President Butler, as The Edward Robinson 
Professorship of Biblical Theology. This was designed 
by Mr. Butler to be a memorial of his long-time friend, 
the late Edward Robinson, D.D., LL.D., the first Pro- 
fessor of Sacred Literature in this institution, who hon- 
ored that Chair and this Seminary by his long and dis- 
tinguished service from 1837 to 1863. 

"The President of the Board suggested that it would 
be in accord with his own wishes and with those of his 
friend, the late President Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., 
LL.D., if the Board should transfer the Rev. Professor 
Charles A. Briggs, D.D., to the new Chair just estab- 
lished. By a unanimous vote the Board at once adopt- 
ed the suggestion of their President, and transferred 

(9) 



10 EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

Professor Briggs from the 'Davenport Chair of Hebrew 
a?zd the Cognate Languages ' to the ' Edward Robinson 
Chair of Biblical Theology' Dr. Briggs, having signi- 
fied his acceptance of this transfer, his inauguration will 
now take place." 

President Butler addressed Professor Briggs as fol- 
lows : 

" On behalf of the Board of Directors, and in accord- 
ance with the constitution of the ' Union Theological 
Seminary in the city of New York/ I call upon you to 
' make and subscribe ' the l declaration ' required of each 
member of the Faculty of this institution." 

Thereupon Professor Briggs made the ' declaration ' 
as follows : 

" / believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of 
faith and practice ; and I do now, in the presejicc of God 
and the Directors of this Seminary, solemnly and sin- 
cerely receive and adopt the Westminster Confession of 
Faith, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the 
Holy Scriptures. I do also, in like manner, approve of 
the Presbyterian Form of Government ; and I do sol- 
emnly promise that I will not teach or inculcate anything 
which shall appear to me to be subversive of the said sys- 
tem of doctrines, or of the principles of said Form of Gov- 
ernment, so long as I shall continue to be a Professor in 
the Seminary T 

Thereupon, President Butler said : 

" In the name of the Board of Directors, I declare 
that Professor Charles A. Briggs, D.D., is inaugurated 
as the Incumbent of the Edward Robinson Chair of 
Biblical Theology. 

" On behalf of the Board of Directors, the Charge to 
Professor Briggs will now be delivered by the member 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. H 

of the Board duly appointed for this service,— the Rev. 
David R. Frazer, D.D., the pastor of the First Presby- 
terian Church of Newark, N. J." 

the charge. 

My dear Brother Briggs: 

Before attempting to discharge the duty which, by 
your kind consideration, has been devolved upon me, 
permit me to tender my heartfelt congratulations : 
First, upon the establishment of the Edward Robinson 
Chair of Biblical Theology ; a consummation so devout- 
ly wished for alike by yourself and by our revered 
Hitchcock. We all share in your joy and recognize 
the new departure as a long and a right step in ad- 
vance in the history of our Institution. 

In the orderings of God's providence every age has 
its own peculiar problem to solve, the solution being 
wrought out from the standpoint of its own pressing 
needs. It is a marked characteristic of our day that 
the Bible is now studied as never before in the world's 
history, and the establishment of this new department 
is in the line of this development and is answerable to 
this modern demand. For, if I understand aright the 
function of Biblical Theology, it does not conduct a 
simple, grammatical exercise; it does not discuss the 
various textual readings ; it does not study the opin- 
ions of the Fathers or the deliverances of the Church ; 
it does not formulate a body of systematic divinity 
grouped about some chosen central principle. These 
are important and legitimate topics of study, hence are 
properly cared for in our curriculum. They will doubt- 
less be very helpful as external aids in the prosecution 
of the work of this Chair, but the peculiar province of 



12 EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

Biblical Theology is to study the Word ; to determine 
what God intends to say in His Word, and then to 
formulate these hallowed teachings. 

Such being its province, I need not pause to show 
that Biblical Theology is the normal response to that 
modern critical spirit which refuses to accept anything 
upon the basis of authority and insists upon tracing 
everything back to its genetic principle and its efficient 
cause. Neither need I tarry to discriminate sharply 
and accurately between the functions of Biblical and 
Systematic Theology. If you, my dear brother, have 
any especial interest in, or desire for information on this 
general subject, I would respectfully refer you to a work 
on " Biblical Study," which is published by the Scrib- 
ners, and was written by one who has served long and 
well in, and has just been transferred from " the Da- 
venport Professorship of Hebrew and the Cognate Lan- 
guages " in this Institution ; and, if you are not ac- 
quainted with the work, I can assure you that the time 
spent in its perusal will not be wasted, for you will 
find therein an admirable and exhaustive discussion of 
the subject. 

But I want to congratulate you, secondly, upon the 
fact that you are to be the incumbent of the new Chair, 
a position for which you are pre-eminently qualified by 
reason of the peculiar character of your past studies. I 
am very well aware, that you would much prefer to 
have me discuss the general topic of Biblical Theology, 
and to dwell upon the claims it has to a place in our 
curriculum, rather than to hint the name of, or make 
any reference to the Professor who is to occupy the 
new Chair. But if anything of a personal character 
should be said, please remember, my brother, you have 
no one to blame save yourself, since, passing by abler 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 13 

men, you have kindly insisted that your old friend and 
classmate should deliver the Charge, as you enter upon 
the awful responsibilities of your new position. And 
as the class spirit asserts itself, I will say, despite your 
unspoken protest, that the class of '64 is proud of its 
representative ; that it rejoices in your well-deserved suc- 
cess, and that it appropriates to itself a peculiar glory 
by virtue of the events of this hour. Little did we dream, 
when we sat at the feet of that honored man whose name 
gives dignity to your new Chair, as also at the feet of 
those other scholarly and godly men, Henry B. Smith, 
Thomas H. Skinner, Roswell D. Hitchcock, and Henry 
H. Hadley, men whose presence was a benediction, 
whose instruction was an inspiration, whose memories 
are revered and hallowed, that there was among us, 
going in and out just as we went in and out, one who 
was destined to sit in Gamaliel's seat and to honor the 
exalted position by his scholarly attainments. Yet 
such was the fact, and although you wish I would not 
say it, still, as your classmate and on behalf of the 
class thus signally honored, I tender you our warmest 
and heartiest congratulations. 

And I propose saying still further, since I betray no 
confidence by the declaration, that it would have greatly 
rejoiced your heart and would have wonderfully inspir- 
ited you for your work could you have heard the cor- 
dial, tender, and appreciative words with which our 
venerable and venerated President of the Board of 
Directors (who is also the kind and generous patron, 
through whose munificence the new Chair has been en- 
dowed, " Serus in coelum redeas "), placed your name, 
the only name placed in nomination for the position. 

And I am sure you would have been more than 
pleased could you have witnessed the unanimity with 



14 EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

which the Directors ratified the nomination and trans- 
ferred you from the Davenport Chair of Hebrew, to 
the Edward Robinson Chair of Biblical Theology. I 
congratulate you that the honored and revered Founder 
of the department wanted you in the department which 
he founded, and also upon the fact that you enter 
upon your new work in the enjoyment of the fullest 
confidence, respect, and love of the Directors of this 
Seminary. 

But I may not forget that this is your hour. Inas- 
much as I cannot hope to impart any instruction re- 
specting the peculiar and practical duties of your new 
position, I would be content to let these congratulatory 
words take the place of the more formal charge. In 
order, however, to meet the requirements of my ap- 
pointment, and to stir up your pure mind by way of 
remembrance, I charge you : 

First. To have clear, well-settled, and accurately de- 
fined views of the nature, the scope, and the design of 
the Holy Scriptures. 

The Bible is to be your text-book, and the Bible 
claims to be the book of God. If this high claim 
cannot be maintained ; if the Bible be not the book of 
God, as verily as Jesus Christ is the Son of God, then 
is it unworthy of our confidence. That Word which 
was in the beginning with God and was God, and which 
in the fulness of time began to be flesh, was, as the In- 
carnate Word, the God-man, very God and very Man. 
We do not understand this " great mystery of godli- 
ness, God manifest in the flesh." We do not attempt 
to explain it, but we accept it, we believe it, we rest 
our hopes of life, here and hereafter, upon it. And 
upon this same basis we can accept the Word written. 
It also is an incarnation. Great is the mystery of 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 15 

Revelation, God manifesting His thought in the forms 
of human speech. Since holy men of old spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost, the Divine and 
human elements are co-ordinated in the Word written 
as well as in the Word Incarnated. We must recognize 
the Divine and human factors in the Scriptures, and 
assign a legitimate place to each and to both, but I 
need not charge you, my dear brother, to bear in cease- 
less remembrance the fact, that just in the proportion 
that the Divine element is eliminated or is abnormally 
subordinated to the human, is the authority of the 
Bible circumscribed and the power of the Bible abridged. 
You will never forget that you have God's Word for 
your text-book, and you will never fail to teach it as 
the very Word of God. 

The scope of Biblical instruction is clearly set forth 
on the sacred page. Great mischief is often wrought 
by the notion that the Bible aims to cover the whole 
sphere of human knowledge, and that its authority is 
lessened by the concession that there are some things 
which can be comprehended without its aid. We surely 
do not need the Bible to teach us that two and two make 
four, or that the whole is greater than any of its parts. 
The Holy Word has a distinct mission and a definite 
aim. It does not come to us as a teacher of physics or 
of metaphysics, but as a revelation : as a revelation of 
God : as a revelation of God to man : as a revelation 
of God to man concerning the highest and the dearest 
moral interests of man, alike for time and for eternity. 
It comes to man, not primarily to reason, but to reveal, 
and to reveal those high themes, which, by necessity 
of being, transcend the ordinary processes of human 
thought. While pervaded with an air of simplicity 
and honesty and truthfulness, it comes not primarily 



IQ EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

to persuade, but to command, and to command, not in 
view of the deductions of human reason or in the light 
of conclusions reached by the processes of a specula- 
tive philosophy, but upon that simple, yet sublime, 
basis, " Thus saith the Lord God." 

The design of Revelation is summed up essentially 
in the Johannean statement, " these things are written 
that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son 
of God, and that believing ye might have life through 
His name." As all roads led to Rome, so all Scripture 
leads to Christ. The poetry, the prophecy, the pre- 
cepts, the biography, the history of the Bible, find their 
true centrality in Him who was at once dust and Divin- 
ity, the Workman of Nazareth, the Prophet of Galilee, 
* The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world.' The final end and ultimate design of the Holy 
Scriptures are " to make wise unto salvation, through 
faith which is in Christ Jesus "; hence it is your busi- 
ness, my dear brother, from the Word written to educe 
the Word Incarnate, and I beg you to so present Jesus 
Christ to all who come to you for instruction, that 
they may go from your class-room to their great life- 
work, not only impressed with an abiding sense of the 
matchless beauty and the mighty power of that Divine 
Saviour concerning whom the Scriptures so abundantly 
testify, but also, and as the normal outcome of your 
teachings, with a fixed determination " to know noth- 
ing among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 

But Paul forewarns " of things hard to be under- 
stood," of problems which must perplex the most acute 
mind and defy the grasp of the most profound intel- 
lect. Furthermore, in the interpretation of the Word, 
conflicting views respecting the exact significance of 
the revelation will arise. Who shall decide when 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 17 

learned doctors disagree ? To whom shall the ultimate 
appeal be taken ? Manifestly to the Spirit of the Liv- 
ing God by whom the declaration was prompted, and 
to whom the meaning is clear ; hence, I charge you, 

Secondly, Seek the aid of the Holy Ghost in your 
arduous and responsible work. 

I attempt no solution of the mooted question as to 
whether our Lord's promise that the Holy Ghost 
should lead believers in " the way of all truth," was re- 
stricted to the Apostolic College and was literally ful- 
filled in the written revelation, or whether it pertains 
to believers in all time. 

But the Scriptures most clearly require that all be- 
lievers should " live in the Spirit," " walk in the Spirit," 
" be filled with the Spirit." Christian consciousness 
bears witness that the abiding presence of the Spirit 
begets deep and vital spirituality, and Christian expe- 
rience abundantly confirms the assertion that vital 
spirituality ensures a large insight of that truth which 
must be spiritually discerned. A willingness to do 
God's will must precede the knowledge of the doctrine, 
and this willingness of mind and heart must be begot- 
ten by the Holy Ghost. Put peculiar honor upon the 
Divine Spirit and He will put peculiar honor upon you 
and your work. He will open your eyes to behold the 
wondrous things in God's law ; He will give you the 
witness of His presence in your own soul, and will en- 
able you, in all meekness and humility, yet with the 
highest Christian positiveness, to say : I know whom 
and what and why I have believed, and am persuaded 
that my confidence rests not upon the wisdom of man, 
but upon the wisdom of God. 

And as you thus teach the Word of God under the 
guidance of the Spirit of God ; as day by day you pre- 



18 EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

sent the truth as it is in Jesus to those who are to 
preach a crucified Redeemer to dying men, may the 
Lord bless you and keep you ; may He equip you for 
duty, help you in the discharge of it, and when your 
great work is finished may His " Well done " be pro- 
nounced upon His " good and faithful servant." 

response of professor briggs. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

I thank you one and all for your presence here to- 
night to do honor to the venerable President of the 
Board of Directors of this Seminary, who has been 
identified with this institution from its foundation, and 
who has crowned a life of Christian philanthropy by 
the endowment of a Chair of Biblical Theology in mem- 
ory of the greatest Biblical scholar our country has 
produced. 

Our Saviour tells us that it is more blessed to give 
than to receive, and we know that your heart, honored 
Sir, is the happiest on this occasion. You have en- 
shrined your name with the name of Edward Robinson 
in a Professor's Chair which in all time to come will 
teach the theology of the Bible, and train thousands of 
students in that Word of God, which is to be the joy of 
their own hearts and the glad tidings of redemption to 
the world. You have so fully endowed this Chair that 
you alone will sustain it in time to come, and have the 
entire credit with every successive professor and stu- 
dent for that financial support without which the work 
of grace cannot be conducted in this world. Your in- 
fluence will go with these heralds of salvation to the 
ends of the earth, and as each in his turn shall tread the 
highway to the heavenly city, he will fill your heart 
with joy in recounting what God has wrought through 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 19 

him and through you. You have laid up a treasure in 
heaven that is secured to you through all the ages of 
eternity. You have not waited, as so many do, for the 
dying hour to make your bequest. You make it in 
your lifetime, while you may rejoice in its accomplish- 
ment. 

I thank you for the great kindness you have done 
me in naming me as your choice for the Chair of your 
foundation. No one could have done me more honor. 
You could not have bestowed upon me a greater bene- 
faction than in making me the first Professor in a Chair 
whose work so exactly corresponds with my ideals of 
christian service, and which bears the name of a 
teacher whose memory is one of my most sacred asso- 
ciations. 

Edward Robinson was the pupil of Moses Stuart, the 
father of Biblical learning in America. 

He carried on the work of Biblical scholarship and laid 
the foundations upon which all recent scholars are 
building. His Lexicons of the languages of the Old 
Testament and the New Testament are in the hands of 
most theological students and ministers, and in new edi- 
tions, that are in course of preparation, will be the help 
of future generations. His " Harmony of the Gospels,'' 
in revised editions, still holds its place as the best of 
Harmonies. His exploration of Palestine made him the 
father of modern Biblical Geography. His mind was 
sound and clear, his judgment firm and solid, his per- 
ceptions keen and searching. If he had a fault it was in 
his dislike of traditionalism. He was a man of truth 
and deeds. He could not endure shams of any kind. 
He was an explorer and a builder. He rose on the 
heights of the best Biblical learning, and he taught his 
students to go forward. He appropriated the best treas- 



20 EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR 

ures of German learning, and held his ground against 
every suspicion of rationalism. As a professor in Union 
Theological Seminary he was a great teacher. As the 
Secretary of its Faculty for many years he was a great 
disciplinarian. He was the first librarian, to whom we 
owe the organization of our great library. It has been 
my honor to be one of his successors as Librarian, as 
Secretary and in the Hebrew Chair, and everywhere I 
have been under the spell of his influence. Edward 
Robinson knew and appreciated the discipline of Bib- 
lical Theology, which in his day was getting a foothold 
in the German universities — but he was obliged, by the 
poverty of Union Seminary, to do all the work of the 
Biblical department, with a single tutor. Like a wise 
master, he gave his strength to the foundations. Owing 
to the benefaction of James Brown, the Biblical depart- 
ment was organized in two chairs ; but long after Rob- 
inson's death. Then to this was added a temporary 
Professor in the department of Biblical Philology. 
Now the chair of Biblical Theology has been estab- 
lished, and the Biblical department of Union Theolog- 
ical Seminary rises to the height of Edward Robinson's 
ideal. Can we doubt — to use your own words, Mr. Presi- 
dent — that his benediction is upon us on this occasion ? 

It was my privilege, as a student of Union Seminary, 
to have as teachers the best Faculty in the world : 
Thomas H. Skinner, Edward Robinson, Henry B. 
Smith, Roswell D. Hitchcock, and Henry Hadley. I 
think that I know these men and that their hearts are 
with us, their successors. 

It is proper that I should briefly allude to our late 
President, Roswell D. Hitchcock, my teacher and then 
my friend. He knew the value of Biblical Theology. 
In his lectures on Biblical History he introduced it into 



OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 21 

his course so far as possible as one of its sections, but 
he saw that the field was too vast, and longed for the 
time when this Chair should be endowed. Dr. Hitch- 
cock was one of the prophets of his time. He had 
marvellous foresight and insight. He saw that the revi- 
sion movement was coming, and that a transformation 
of theology was necessary. He prepared his students 
for the day and the work. He has left us little in book 
form, but his volume of Sermons is worth a hundred 
books of other men, and his influence and name will 
endure as long as the sun and the moon, to all genera- 
tions. 

It is a happy feature of this occasion that my dear 
brother Frazer, whom I learned to value and to love, in 
the class rooms of the Seminary, represents the Board 
of Directors in giving me their Charge. I could be sure 
of his confidence as entwined in the memory of youth- 
ful study and affection. I thank him for the expression 
of it again to-night. To you, gentlemen of the Board 
of Directors, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks. 
Your unanimous choice of me to this position in all the 
circumstances of the case is a renewed token of those 
pleasant relations that have never been disturbed since 
first you welcomed me, a young and inexperienced 
teacher, into the ranks of the faculty. I can only say 
that, so far as I know myself, I am loyal to you, to the 
faculty, to my teachers, and to the founders and the 
benefactors of this institution. 

In advancing into the fields of Biblical Theology it is 
a great comfort to me that you have chosen as my suc- 
cessor in the Hebrew Chair one, a pupil, who knows 
my work, and will carry it on — a friend, who has been 
for many years as my right arm, who will do the work 
better than I have done it, and who has the courage 



22 EDWARD ROBINSON CHAIR. 

to go forward and build higher. The only difficulty 
I had in the way of accepting the chair, was lest too 
much work would be imposed upon him by the as- 
sumption of new work in addition to the old. I can- 
not refrain from expressing my thanks to my dear 
friend, David H. McAlpin, that he has removed this 
difficulty out of our way, and in addition to numerous 
acts of kindness, which seem as natural to him as life 
and breath, he has furnished the means to sustain a 
tutorial assistant to Dr. Brown for two years in the 
hope that ere that time shall elapse some kind friend 
may be glad to add another name to the benefactors of 
this institution, and follow the example set by our hon- 
ored President. 

It may not be out of place for me to say that Union 
Theological Seminary is not a wealthy institution. We 
need at least half a million dollars to make us comfort- 
able. 

It is impossible for the gentlemen of our Board of 
Directors to do all that the Seminary requires. They 
are one and all doing nobly. Some of them are strain- 
ing their resources to sustain this institution and ex- 
alt it. 

God has blessed us in the past ; we are rejoicing in 
His blessing to-night. I doubt not there are in this 
audience and in this city numerous friends, who will 
bless us and bless themselves in the eternities with the 
ample supply that they will furnish for all the needs of 
this institution, that it may be a centre of evangelism 
for this metropolis, for the nation, and for the world. 



III. 

THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. ^ 

The Authority of Holy Scripture. 

The theme for my discourse to-night has sprung out 
of the necessities of the situation. It seems to be my 
duty to set forth my views fully and frankly with refer- 
ence to those fundamental questions of our times that 
underlie the discipline of Biblical Theology. Accord- 
ingly, I have chosen that upon which everything de- 
pends — the Authority of Holy Scripture. 

Human nature is so constituted that, when self-con- 
sciousness and reflection rise into activity, there is an 
irresistible impulse to seek authority for the relations 
in which we find ourselves, the knowledge that is taught 
us and the conduct prescribed for us in life. We may 
be content as children with the authority of our par- 
ents, as young men and maidens with the authority of 
masters and teachers, but, sooner or later, the responsi- 
bility is thrown upon ourselves, and we alone must bear 
the strain of life, incur its obligations, and earn its 
rewards and penalties for time and for eternity. What 
authority shall be our guide and comfort in life is a 
fundamental question for man at all times, but never 
has it been so urged upon our race as in the closing 
years of the nineteenth century. 

If we undertake to search the forms of authority that 
exist about us, they all alike disclose themselves as human 
and imperfect, and we feel at times as if we were upon 

(23) 



24 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

an unknown sea, with pilots and officers in whom we 
have no confidence. The earnest spirit presses back 
of all these human authorities in quest of an infallible 
guide and of an eternal and immutable certainty. Prob- 
ability might be the guide of life in the superficial 
eighteenth century, and for those who have inherited 
its traditions, but the men of the present times are in 
quest of certainty. Divine authority is the only author- 
ity to which man can yield implicit obedience, on 
which he can rest in loving certainty and build with 
joyous confidence. 

The progress of criticism in our day has so under- 
mined and destroyed the pillars of authority upon 
which former generations were wont to rest that agnos- 
ticism seems to many minds the inevitable result of 
scientific investigation. We cannot know God, we can- 
not be certain with regard to ultimate realities. Man 
cannot rise to the throne of the Deity. He cannot see 
the Invisible or know the transcendent. Unless God 
in some way enter within the region of human knowl- 
edge, we cannot know Him. But if God be God, if He 
be the Creator and Sovereign of the universe, if He has 
made it and governs it with a holy purpose, He may 
not only transcend universal nature by reigning over 
it, but He may enter into it, inhabit it, and pervade it 
with His immanence. He may disclose His presence 
in forms that men may be able to discern. 

I. — THE SOURCES OF DIVINE AUTHORITY. 

It is the testimony of human experience in all ages] 
that God manifests Himself to men and gives certainty 
of His presence and authority. There are historically 
three great fountains of divine authority — the Bible, 
the Church, and the Reason. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 25 

(i.) The Authority of the Church. — The majority of 
Christians from the apostolic age have found God 
through the Church. Martyrs and saints, fathers and 
schoolmen, the profoundest intellects, the saintliest 
lives, have had this experience. Institutional Chris- 
tianity has been to them the presence-chamber of God. 
They have therein and thereby entered into commun- 
ion with all saints. It is difficult for many Protestants 
to regard this experience as any other than pious illu- 
sion and delusion. But what shall we say of a modern 
like Newman, who could not reach certainty, striving 
never so hard, through the Bible or the Reason, but 
who did find divine authority in the institutions of the 
Church?* Shall we deny it because it may be beyond 
our experience? If we have not seen God in institu- 
tional Christianity, it is because the Church and its 
institutions have so enveloped themselves to us with 
human conceits and follies. Divine authority has been 
so encased in the authority of popes and councils, prel- 
ates and priests, ecclesiastics and theologians, that 
multitudes have been unable to discern it ; and these 
mediators of redemption have so obtruded themselves 
in the way of devout seekers after God that they could 
not find God. Plain, common people have not been 
offended so much by this state of things, because they 



* " From the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further 
history of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to 
say that my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological 
subjects ; but that I have had no changes to record, and have had no anxiety 
of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment. I never 
have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any 
difference of thought or of temper from what I had before. I was not conscious 
of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of revelation or of more self-command ; 
I had not more fervor ; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea ; and 
my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption." — New- 
man's Apologia Pro Vita Sua, p. 264. 



26 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

are accustomed in all denominations to identify the 
authority of God with the authority of priest and 
pastor, as a child identifies the authority of the parent 
with the authority of God ; and men of deep spiritual 
insight may be able to force their way through these 
obstructions, and find God in spite of them. But to men 
of the temperament and environment of the average 
educated Protestant such an experience is difficult, if 
not impossible. Nevertheless, the Church is a seat of 
divine authority, and the multitudes of pious souls in 
the present and the past have not been mistaken in 
their experience when they have found God in the 
Church. 

(2.) The Authority of the Reason, — Another means 
used by God to make Himself known is the forms of the 
Reason, using Reason in a broad sense to embrace the 
metaphysical categories, the conscience and the religi- 
ous feeling. Here, in the Holy of Holies of human 
nature, God presents Himself to those who seek Him. 
The vast multitude of men are guided by God through 
the forms of the Reason, without their having any con- 
sciousness of His presence or guidance. There are few 
who are able to rise by reflection into the higher con- 
sciousness of God. These few are of the mystic type 
of religion ; the men who have been the prophets of 
mankind, the founders of religions, the leaders of Re- 
vivals and Reformations, who, conscious of the divine 
presence within them, and certain of His guidance, lead 
on confidently in the paths of divine Providence. Such 
men have appeared in all ages of the world. Some of 
them have been the leaders of thought in modern times 
in Great Britain, Germany, and America. We ought 
not to be surprised that they should depreciate the 
Bible and the Church as merely external modes of find- 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 27 

ing God, for even the prophets of the Bible attach little 
importance to the institutions of Israel, and seldom 
mention them, except to warn against their misuse.* 

It may be that these modern thinkers have a divine 
calling to withdraw men from mere priestcraft, cere- 
monialism, dead orthodoxy and ecclesiasticism, and 
concentrate their attention on the essentials of the 
Christian religion. 

Martineau could not find divine authority in the 
Church or the Bible, but he did find God enthroned in 
his own soul.f There are those who would refuse these 
Rationalists a place in the company of the faithful. 
But they forget that the essential thing is to find God 
and divine certainty, and if these men have found God 
without the mediation of Church and Bible, Church 
and Bible are means and not ends ; they are avenues to 
God, but are not God. We regret that these Rational- 
ists depreciate the means of grace so essential to most 
of us, but we are warned lest we commit a similar 
error, and depreciate the Reason and the Christian con- 
sciousness. 



* i Sam. xv. 22-23 ? Is- *■ 10-17 > Jer. vii. 22-26 ; Mic. vi. 6-8. 

t " Divine guidance has never and nowhere failed to men ; nor has it ever, 
in the most essential things, largely differed amongst them ; but it has not 
always been recognized as divine, much less as the living contact of Spirit with 
spirit — the communion of affection between God and man. While conscience 
remained an impersonal law, stern and silent, with only a jealous Nemesis be- 
hind, man had to stand up alone, and work out for himself his independent 
magnanimity ; and he could only be the pagan hero. When conscience was 
found to be inseparably blended with the Holy Spirit, and to speak in tones 
immediately divine, it became the very shrine of worship — its strife, its repent- 
ance, its aspirations, passed into the incidents of a living drama, with its crises 
of alienation and reconcilement ; and the cold obedience to a mysterious neces- 
sity was exchanged for the allegiance of personal affection. And this is the 
true emergence from the darkness of ethical law to the tender light of the life 
divine. The veil falls from the shadowed face of moral authority, and the 
directing love of the all-holy God shines forth." — Martineau's Seat of 
Authority in Religion, p. 75. 



28 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

(3.) The Authority of Holy Scripture. — We have ex- 
amined the Church and the Reason as seats of divine* 
authority in an introduction to our theme, the Author- 
ity of the Scriptures, because they open our eyes to 
see mistakes that are common to the three depart- 
ments. Protestant Christianity builds its faith and life 
on the divine authority contained in the Scriptures, 
and too often depreciates the Church and the Reason. 
Spurgeon is an example of the average modern Evan- 
gelical, who holds the Protestant position, and assails 
the Church and Reason in the interest of the authority 
of Scripture. But the average opinion of the Christian 
world would not assign him a higher place in the 
kingdom of God than Martineau or Newman. May we 
not conclude, on the whole, that these three represent- 
ative Christians of our time, living in or near the 
world's metropolis, have, each in his way, found God 
and rested on divine authority ? May we not learn from 
them not to depreciate any of the means whereby God 
makes Himself known to men ? Men are influenced by 
their temperaments and environments which of the 
three ways of access to God they may pursue. There 
are obstructions thrown up by the folly of men in each 
one of these avenues, and it is our duty as servants of 
the living God, to remove the stumbling-block out of 
the way of all earnest seekers after God, in the avenues 
most familiar to us. 

No one of these ways has been so obstructed as the 
Holy Bible. The ancient Jews made a fence about the 
law, and enclosed it with circle upon circle of tra- 
ditional interpretation, so that the law itself was hid- 
den out of sight, the external circle of interpretation 
having taken its place, and the authority of God was 
obscured by the authority of man. The Christian 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 29 

Church pursued the same method, and concealed the 
Word of God behind the authority of popes and coun- 
cils, fathers and schoolmen. The Reformers brought 
the Bible from its obscurity for a season, but their suc- 
cessors, the scholastics and ecclesiastics of Protestant- 
ism, pursued the old error and enveloped the Bible with 
creeds and ecclesiastical decisions, and dogmatic sys- 
tems, and substituted for the authority of God the 
authority of a Protestant rule of faith. The Bible has 
been treated as if it were a baby, to be wrapped in 
swaddling-clothes, nursed, and carefully guarded, lest it 
should be injured by heretics and skeptics. It has 
been shut up in a fortress, and surrounded by breast- 
works and fortifications as extensive as those that 
envelope Cologne and Strasburg. No one can get at 
the Bible unless he force his way through these breast- 
works of traditional dogmatism, and storm the barriers 
of ecclesiasticism. 

II. — THE BARRIERS OF DIVINE AUTHORITY IN HOLY 
SCRIPTURE. 

The Bible is the book of God, the greatest treasure 
of the Church. Its ministry are messengers to preach 
the Word of God, and to invite men to His presence 
and government. It is pharisaic to obstruct their way 
by any fences or stumbling-blocks whatever. It is a 
sin against the divine majesty to prop up divine author- 
ity by human authority, however great or extensive. 
The sun is shining in noontide splendor. Lest men, 
by looking at it, should quench the light of the great 
luminary, let us build walls so high that they cannot 
see the sun, and let us guard its light by reflecting mir- 
rors. The grace of God is the true elixir of life to all 
mankind. Lest indiscriminate use of it should vitiate 



30 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

its powers, let us dilute it in several degrees, so that it 
may not come to men directly, but only through a suc- 
cession of safe hands. How absurd, you say. And 
yet this is the way men have been dealing with the 
Bible, shutting out the light of God, obstructing the 
life of God, and fencing in the authority of God. 

(i.) Superstition. — The first barrier that obstructs the 
way to the Bible is superstition. We are accustomed to 
attach superstition to the Roman Catholic Mariolatry, 
Hagiolatry, and the use of images and pictures and 
other external things in worship. But superstition is 
no less superstition if it take the form of Bibliolatry. 
It may be all the worse if it concentrate itself on this 
one thing. But the Bible has no magical virtue in it, 
and there is no halo enclosing it. It will not stop a 
bullet any better than a mass-book. It will not keep 
off evil spirits any better than a cross. It will not guard 
a home from fire half so well as holy water. If you de- 
sire to know when and how you should take a journey, 
you will find a safer guide in an almanac or a daily 
newspaper. The Bible is no better than hydromancy 
or witchcraft, if we seek for divine guidance by the 
chance opening of the Book.* The Bible, as a book, is 
paper, print, and binding, — nothing more. It is enti- 



* I am far from any disposition to treat with disrespect the religious convic- 
tions of pious Roman Catholics or Protestants. Roman Catholic divines rec- 
ognize that there are superstitious uses of the mass-book, the cross, and holy 
water that are not justified by Roman Catholic doctrine and usage. My argu- 
ment is against those Protestants who exhibit the same superstition toward the 
Bible as some Roman Catholics show in the ceremonies of their religion. Su- 
perstition is just as bad in the one as in the other. The only difference is 5n 
the forms of its manifestation. In my experience, those who make the loudest 
outcry against Roman Catholic superstition are the very ones who are most 
guilty of the superstition I am condemning in Protestantism. The criticisms 
that have been made upon this address, especially in religious journals noted 
for their hostility to Roman Catholicism, show that Bibliolatry is more preva- 
lent in Protestantism than I had supposed. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 31 

tied to reverent handling for the sake of its holy con- 
tents, because it contains the divine word of redemp- 
tion for man, and not for any other reason whatever. 

(2.) Verbal Inspiration. — The second barrier, keeping 
men from the Bible, is the dogma of verbal inspiration. 
The Bible in use in our churches and homes is an Eng- 
lish Bible. Upon the English Bible our religious life is 
founded. But the English Bible is a translation from' 
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek originals. It is claimed 
for these originals by modern dogmaticians that they 
are verbally inspired. -No such claim is found in the 
Bible itself, or in any of the creeds of Christendom. 
And yet it has been urged by the common opinion of 
modern evangelicalism that there can be no inspiration 
without verbal inspiration.* But a study of the origi- 
nal languages of the Bible finds that they are languages 
admirably fitted by divine Providence for their pur- 
pose^ but still, languages developing in the same way 
essentially as other human languages. The text of the 
Bible, in which these languages have been handed down, 
has shared the fortunes of other texts of other literature. 

We find there are errors of transmission. There is 
nothing divine in the text, — in its letters, words, or 
clauses.;): There are those who hold that thought and 
language are as inseparable as body and soul. But lan- 
guage is rather the dress of thought. A master of 
many languages readily clothes the same thought in 
half a dozen different languages. The same thought 
in the Bible itself is dressed in different literary styles, 
and the thought of the 'one is as authoritative as the 
other. The divine authority is not in the style or in 



* Briggs' Whither, pp. 64 seg. Charles Scribner's Sons. 

t Briggs' Biblical Study, pp. 42 seg. Charles Scribner's Sons. 

X Biblical Study, pp. 156 seg. 



32 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

the words, but in the concept, and so the divine power 
of the Bible may be transferred into any human lan- 
guage.* The divine authority contained in the Scrip- 
tures speaks as powerfully in English as in Greek, in 
Choctaw as in Aramaic, in Chinese as in Hebrew. We 
force our way through the language and the letter, the 
grammar and the style, to the inner substance of the 
thought, for there, if at all, we shall find God. 

(3.) Authenticity. — The third barrier is the authentic- 
ity of the Scriptures. The only authenticity we are con- 
cerned about in seeking for the divine authority of the 
Scriptures is divine authenticity \\ and yet many theolo- 
gians have insisted that we must prove that the Scrip- 
tures were written by or under the superintendence of 
prophets and apostles.^ Refusing to build on the au- 
thority of the living Church, they have sought an au- 
thority in the dead Church ; abandoning the authority 
of institutional Christianity, they have sought a prop 
in floating traditions. These traditions assign authors 
to all the books of the Bible, and on the authority of 
these human authors, it is claimed that the Bible is di- 
vine. These theologians seem altogether unconscious 
of the circle of reasoning they are making. They prove 
the authority of the Bible from the authority of its au- 
thors. But what do we know of the authors apart from 
the Bible itself? Apart from the sacred writings, — 
Moses and David, Paul and Peter, would be no more 
to us than Confucius or Sakya Muni. They were lead- 
ers of men, but how do we know that they were called 
of God to speak divine words to us? The only way in 
which we can prove their authority is from their writ- 
ings, and yet we are asked to accept the authority of 
the writings on the authority of these authors. When 

* Whither, p. 66. f Biblical Study, pp. 220 seg. \ Whither, pp. 81 seq. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 33 

such fallacies are thrust in the faces of men seeking di- 
vine authority in the Bible, is it strange that so many 
turn away in disgust ? It is just here that the Higher 
Criticism has proved such a terror in our times. Tradi- 
tionalists are crying out that it is destroying the Bible,, 
because it is exposing their fallacies and follies. It may 
be regarded as the certain result of the science of the 
Higher Criticism that Moses did not write the Penta- 
teuch or Job ; Ezra did not write the Chronicles, Ezra, 
or Nehemiah ; Jeremiah did not write the Kings or 
Lamentations ; David did not write the Psalter, but 
only a few of the Psalms ; Solomon did not write the 
Song of Songs or Ecclesiastes, and only a portion of the 
Proverbs ; Isaiah did not write half of the book that 
bears his name. The great mass of the Old Testament 
was written by authors whose names or connection with 
their writings are lost in oblivion.* If this is destroy- 
ing the Bible, the Bible is destroyed already. But who 
tells us that these traditional names were the authors 
of the Bible? The Bible itself? The creeds of the 
Church ? Any reliable historical testimony ? None of 
these ! Pure, conjectural tradition ! Nothing more ! 
We are not prepared to build our faith for time and 
eternity upon such uncertainties as these. We desire 
to know whether the Bible came from God, and it is 
not of any great importance that we should know the 
names of those worthies chosen by God to mediate His 
revelation. It is possible that there is a providential 
purpose in the withholding of these names, in order 
that men might have no excuse for building on human 
authority, and so should be forced to resort to divine 
authority. It will ere long become clear to the Chris- 
tian people that the Higher Criticism has rendered an 

* Biblical Study, pp. 222 seq. 



34 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

inestimable service to this generation and to the gen- 
erations to come. What has been destroyed has been 
the fallacies and conceits of theologians ; the obstruc- 
tions that have barred the way of literary men from the 
Bible. Higher Criticism has forced its way into the Bi- 
ble itself and brought us face to face with the holy con- 
tents, so that we may see and know whether they are di- 
vine or not. Higher Criticism has not contravened any 
decision of any Christian council, or any creed of any 
Church, or any statement of Scripture itself. It has 
rather brought the long-neglected statement of the 
Westminster Confession into prominence : 

" The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it 
ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon 
the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon 
God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; and 
therefore it is to be received, because it is the word of 
God."* 

Luther, with keen spiritual insight, once said : 

" What does not teach Christ, that is not apostolic, 
even if St. Peter or St. Paul taught it : again, what 
preaches Christ that would be apostolic, even if Judas, 
Annas, Pilate, and Herod did it."f 

It used to be the fashion to apologize for this word 
of Luther ; but here, as elsewhere, Luther was truer to 
the Gospel than modern theologians. 

(4.) Inerrancy. — The fourth barrier set up by theolo- 
gians to keep men away from the Bible is the dogma of 
the inerrancy of Scripture. This barrier confronts His- 
torical Criticism. It is not a pleasant task to point out 
errors in the sacred Scriptures. Nevertheless Histori- 
cal Criticism finds them, and we must meet the issue 

* Confess, of Faith, I. 4. 

t Kostlin, Luther" s Theologie, II. 256 ; Walch. xiv., p. 149. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 35 

whether they destroy the authority of the Bible or 
not. It has been taught in recent years, and is still 
taught by some theologians, that one proved error de- 
stroys the authority of Scripture.* I shall venture to 
affirm that, so far as I can see, there are errors in the Scrip- 
tures that no one has been able to explain away ; and the 
theory that they were not in the original text is sheer 
assumption, upon which no mind can rest with cer- 
tainty.f If such errors destroy the authority of the Bible, 
it is already destroyed for historians. Men cannot shut 
their eyes to truth and fact. But on what authority 
do these theologians drive men from the Bible by this 
theory of inerrancy ? The Bible itself nowhere makes 
this claim. The creeds of the Church nowhere sanction 
it. It is a ghost of modern evangelicalism to frighten 
children. The Bible has maintained its authority with 
the best scholars of our time, who with open minds 
have been willing to recognize any error that might be 
pointed out by Historical Criticism ; % for these errors 
are all in the circumstantials and not in the essentials ; 
they are in the human setting, not in the precious jewel 
itself ; they are found in that section of the Bible that 
theologians commonly account for from the providen- 
tial superintendence of the mind of the author, as distin- 
guished from divine revelation itself. It may be that 
this providential superintendence gives infallible guid- 
ance in every particular ; and it may be that it differs 
but little, if at all, from the providential superintend- 
ence of the fathers and schoolmen and theologians of 
the Christian Church. It is not important for our pur- 
pose that we should decide this question. If we should 



* Biblical Study, pp. 240 seq. ; Whither, pp. 68 sea. + Whither, p. 72. 

X G. P. Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, p. 206 sea. ; Charles 
Gore, in Lux Mundi, pp. 354 seq. ; W. Sanday, Oracles of God, pp. 15 seq. 



36 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

abandon the whole field of providential superintendence 
so far as inspiration and divine authority are concerned 
and limit divine inspiration and authority to the essen- 
tial contents of the Bible, to its religion, faith, and mor- 
als, we would still have ample room to seek divine au- 
thority where alone it is essential, or even important, in 
the teaching that guides our devotions, our thinking, and 
our conduct. Whether divine authority extends to the 
circumstantials of this divine teaching or not, it is un- 
wise and it is unchristian to force men to accept the 
divine authority of the Bible or reject it, on the ques- 
tion of its inerrancy in the circumstantials and the 
details of every passage.* 

(5.) Violation of the Laws of Nature. — The fifth ob- 
struction to the Bible has been thrown up in front of mod- 
ern science. It is the claim that the miracles disturb, or 
violate, the laws of nature and the harmony of the uni- 
verse ; and so the miracles of the Bible have become to 
men of science sufficient evidence that the Bible is no 
more than other sacred books of other religions.f But 
the theories of miracles that have been taught in the 
Christian Church are human inventions for which the 
Scriptures and the Church have no responsibility what- 
ever. 

The miracles of the Bible are confined to the 
life of Christ and His apostles and to the ministry of 
Moses, Elijah, and Elisha, with very few exceptions. 
The Biblical writers do not lay so much stress upon 
them as modern apologists. Moses and Jesus both 
warn their disciples against miracles that would be 
wrought in the interest of false prophets and false mes 
siahs4 The tests that they gave to discriminate the 

* Whither \ p. 73. t Whither ; pp. 279 seq. 

% Deut. xiii. 1-5 ; Matth. xxiv. 24-28 ; 2 Thess. ii. 8-12. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 37 

true from the false were not their marvellous charac- 
ter, their violation of the laws of nature, their suspen- 
sion of the uniformity of law, or the comprehension of 
extraordinary laws with ordinary laws in higher laws 
— nothing of the kind ; but the simple test whether 
they set forth the holy character and the gracious 
teaching of God and His Messiah. The miracles of the 
Bible are miracles of redemption. They exhibit the 
love of God and the compassion of the Messiah for the 
needy, the suffering and the lost.* These divine fea- 
tures of Biblical miracles have been obscured by the 
apologists, who have unduly emphasized their mate- 
rial forms. The miracles of the Bible were the work 
of God either by direct divine energy or mediately 
through holy men, energized to perform them ; but there 
is no reason why we should claim that they in any way 
violate the laws of nature or disturb its harmonies. We 
ought not to be disturbed by the efforts of scholars to 
explain them under the forms of divine law, in accord- 
ance with the order of nature. If it were possible to 
resolve all the miracles of the Old Testament into ex- 
traordinary acts of Divine Providence, using the forces 
and forms of nature in accordance with the laws of na- 
ture ; and if we could explain all the miracles of Jesus, 
His unique authority over man and over nature, from 
His use of mind cure, or hypnotism, or any other occult 
power, — still I claim that nothing essential would be lost 
from the miracles of the Bible ; they would still remain 
the most wonderful exhibition of loving purpose and 
redemptive acts of God and of the tenderness and grace 
of the Messiah's heart. Christian men may construct 
their theories about the miracles of the Bible with en- 
tire freedom so long as they do not deny the reality of 

* A. B. Bruce, The Miraculous Element in the Gospels ; pp. 258 seq. 



38 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

the events themselves as recorded in Holy Scripture. 
The study of the miracles of the Bible has convinced me 
that they may be explained from the presence of God 
in nature, in varied forms of Theophany and Chris- 
tophany, for where God is present we may expect mani- 
festations of divine authority and power. As my friend, 
Dr. Bruce, recently said : 

" Miracles are not the effects of partially or wholly unknown 
physical causes ; they are produced by immediate divine caus- 
ality. But they are not on that account lawless or unnatural. 
They are wrought for a worthy end, and in accordance with a 
wise plan. They are natural in the sense that they are congru- 
ous to the nature of God, falling within the compass of His 
power and subject to the direction of His wise, holy, loving 
will. They are natural further, I may add, in the sense that 
they do not wantonly interrupt or upset the order of nature, 
but rather put it to higher uses, which from the first it has 
been fitted and destined to subserve." — Bruce 's The Miraculous 
Element in the Gospels, p. 66. 

(6.) Minute Prediction. — Another barrier to the Bible 
has been the interpretation put upon Predictive Prophecy, 
making it a sort of history before the time, and looking 
anxiously for the fulfilment of the details of Biblical 
prediction. Kuenen has shown that if we insist upon 
the fulfilment of the details of the predictive prophecy 
of the Old Testament, many of these predictions have 
been reversed by history ; and the great body of the 
Messianic prediction has not only never been fulfilled, 
but cannot now be fulfilled, for the reason that its own 
time has passed forever.* 

The Book of Jonah gives valuable suggestion here. 
See Jonah going to Nineveh with a prediction that in 
forty days Nineveh will be destroyed, and then going 



* Briggs' Messianic Prophecy, pp. 43 seq. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 39 

to a safe place outside the city, waiting with impatience 
for the grand sight, the destruction of the metropolis 
of the world. But Nineveh repents and God recalls His 
decree, and the city is spared. The prophet is so dis- 
tressed and humiliated at the failure of his prediction 
that he longs for death.* Doubtless God has not ful- 
filled His prediction. He has recalled it. The messen- 
ger has been discredited as a predictor, but he has been 
accredited as the channel of the redemption from God. 
It may be that Nineveh will presume upon the weak- 
ness of God, His fickleness and changeableness. But at 
all events, God Himself takes the risk. This is not the 
only unfulfilled prediction in the Old Testament. God 
has recalled more than one of His messages of woe.f 
He postpones the dies irce until men count Him slack 
in the fulfilment of His promises, and mock and jeer at 
His justice.:): 

They know not that their salvation is involved in 
these recalls and postponement. God is not willing 
that any should perish. He rules over the world to re- 
deem as many as possible. This makes it difficult for 
a hard and fast system of dogma. It troubles the 
apologist and disarranges his lines of defence, but it 
presents God Himself as the God of man, the very 
God that humanity craves. Jonah represents only too 
well the general attitude of Jew and Christian alike to 
the heathen world. Embedded in Jonah, unnoticed 
save by Zwingli and a few Anabaptists and heretics, is 
the gospel of infant salvation and of heathen salvation. 

" Should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city ; 
wherein are more than six-score thousand persons that 

* Jonah iii.-iv. 

t Is. xxxviii. ; Briggs' Messianic Prophecy, pp. 58 seq. 

% 2 Peter iii. 3-9. 



40 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

cannot discern between their right hand and their left 
hand; and also much cattle?"* 

We need no evidence that this is a divine utterance ; 
it speaks for itself. It is clearer than a thousand de- 
tailed predictions and their fulfilment. 

We have passed through these barriers that men 
have thrown up in front of the Word of God, the breast- 
works against Philosophy, History, and Science. It is 
not surprising that multitudes of the best men of our 
age have rejected a Bible thus guarded and defended, 
as if it could not sustain the light of day. Doubtless 
there are many who are thinking that the critics are 
destroying the Bible. They have so identified these 
outworks with the Bible itself that their Bible vanishes 
with these barriers. I feel deeply for them. But we 
have a right to assume that if these apologists are 
within the camp of God, they ought to have such con- 

* Jonah iv. n. I recently came upon a passage in one of the early Baptists, 
using this verse of Jonah in a way that was unknown to orthodox circles : 

"And our Saviour Christ Luke XVIII: 16. in commendation of the condi- 
tion and qualitie of Babes, saith, Suffer the Babes to come unto vie : for of 
such is the king dome of Heaven. And Matth. XVIII: 3. Except ye be con- 
verted and become as little children ye shal not enter into the kingdome of 
heaven. dr» Ver. 4 whosoever therefore shal humble himself as this little child, 
the same is the greatest in the Kingdome of heaven. In all this shewing, that 
the children of Christ's Kingdome must be off such humble qualities and con- 
ditions as infants, & I hope none will deny, but al infants are off one quality 
& condition, even the infants of the Turks, our Saviour speakes off al infants 
generally : & evil men yet judge some infants condemned. 

" And of such infants the Lord sheweth his great compasion, when he saith 
to the Prophet Jonah — Jonah IV: n ... . whereby the Lord sheweth that they 
had not sinned, neither were giltie off their Fathers sinnes. And wil you yet 
charge the Lord to condemne so manie infants and al for Adams sinne ? are 
not your waies unequall thus to say and teach me to hold & think off God ? "— 
Tho. Helwys. A Short and Plaine Proof by the Word, ani workes off God 
that Gods decree is not the cause ofanne Mans sinne or condemnation. And 
that all men are redeemed by Christ. As also that no Infants are condemned. 
161 1, sine loco. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 41 

fidence in divine authority that nothing from without 
could shake them. If they have been relying on the 
defenses and too little upon the Bible itself, it is high 
time that they were forced back to the Bible. But I 
feel more deeply for those many men, honest and true, 
whom they have been keeping away from the Bible.* I 
would say to all such : We have undermined the breast- 
works of traditionalism ; let us blow them to atoms. We 
have forced our way through the obstructions ; let us 
remove them from the face of the earth, that no man 
hereafter may be kept from the Bible, but that all may 
freely enter in, search it through and through, and find 
God enthroned in its very centre. 

Here in the citadel of the Bible two hosts confront 
the most sacred things of our religion — the one, the 
defenders of traditionalism, trembling for the ark of 
God ; the other, the critics, a victorious army, deter- 
mined to capture all its sacred treasures and to enjoy 
all its heavenly glories. 

The self-constituted defenders can no longer retain a 
monopoly of the Word of God and exact conditions of 
all who would use it. It has already been taken from 
them by Biblical criticism, and it is open to all man- 
kind, without conditions. Is it not their heritage? 
Did not Jesus and His apostles offer it to them as glad 
tidings of redemption to the world? Are there not 
treasures of grace in Holy Scripture amply sufficient 
for all mankind ? It is the teaching of God that men 

* Dr. A. B. Bruce, one of the keenest observers of the religious life of our 
times, says: "I certainly believe that there are many more unpolished dia- 
monds hidden in the churchless mass of humanity than the respectable church- 
going part of the community has any idea of. I am even disposed to think 
that a great and steadily increasing portion of the moral worth of society lies 
outside the Church, separated from it not by godlessness, but rather by excep- 
tionally moral earnestness. Many, in fact, have left the Church in order to be 
Christians." — Kingdom of God, p. 144. 



42 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

are anxious to know ; the theology of the Bible itself 
is what they are craving. The teaching of men and 
the theology of creeds and theologians no longer con- 
tent them. These all have their place and importance, 
but they cannot take the place of the theology of the 
Bible and the authority of God. 

III.— THE THEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 

We are now face to face with Biblical Theology. Here, 
if anywhere, the divine authority will be found. It is 
my habit to divide Biblical Theology into three sec- 
tions — Religion, Doctrines of Faith, and Morals. Let 
us look at the God of the Bible as He discloses Him- 
self in some of these forms. 

A. — THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE. 

(i.) Theophanies. — The most prominent feature of the 
religion of the Bible is Theophany. Theophanies are 
the bases of every advance, the fountain of prophecy, 
the source of miracle. They guide the heroic leaders 
and reformers of the Old Testament religion. A per- 
manent Theophany guides Israel from Egypt to the 
Holy Land, and takes possession of the Holy Taber- 
nacle and temple as its permanent abode.* 

Theophanies cluster about the Messiah at His advent, 
until these give place to the Christophanies, which are 
the great feature of the New Testament religion. 

It is conceded that these Theophanies have features 
in common with the mythological conceptions of the 
ancient religions of the world, which have been rejected 
as mythical by historical criticism. But so soon as we 
compare the Theophanies of the Bible with heathen 
mythology, we observe striking differences. 

* Briggs' Biblical History \ pp. 16 seq. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 43 

(a) There is nothing of a polytheistic character about 
the Theophanies of the Bible. The one God manifests 
Himself to chosen men and a chosen people. 

(fi) The Theophanies of the Bible are not confined to 
ancient times, the legendary basis of the history ; they 
pervade and control the entire history of the Bible. 

(c) The mythological conceptions of the divine pres- 
ence are connected with gross conceptions, in which 
the gods are of like passion with ourselves ; but the 
Theophanies of the Bible are pure and holy, and ever 
have in view the redemption of men. God assumes 
the forms of light or fire, or of angel or man, in order 
that He may be manifest to the human senses, and as- 
sure mankind of His presence and favour.* 

(d) When the doctrine of the divine transcendence 
was unduly emphasized, the Theophanies remained in 
obscurity behind the miracle and the prediction which 
might be wrought by the power of God from a distance, 
outside His universe. But now that the Immanence 
of God is rising into prominence, the Theophany casts 
the miracle and the prediction into its shadow. We 
now know that God is not only over all, but through 
all and in all. He is not far from any one of us. If 
we feel after Him, we may find Him. We cannot 
escape from His presence. If God is really present in 
the world, pervading it, inhabiting it, was it not a part 
of the divine instruction that men should be taught 
by visible signs to see it and know it? When He 
appeared to the ancients in human form, they were 
assured by their senses of His ability to be with them 
in every hour of need, and they were prepared for 
the conception of the great prophet of the exile : 
" I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also 

* Briggs' Biblical History, p. 21. 



44 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

that is of a contrite and humble spirit." * When God 
guided Israel by a pillar of cloud and fire, He taught 
them in sensible signs the sublime truth of His govern- 
ance of mankind. When He took up His abode in the 
temple, He was training them for the conception of the 
universal religion, that He inhabits the whole earth. 
If God is really present in His world, and has an inter- 
est in the bearers of redemption to a chosen people, 
the kingdom of priests for mankind, is it not reason- 
able that He should show His form in the midst of the 
elements of nature, and His countenance in the faces of 
intelligent beings? 

The Theophanies of the Old Testament lead on to 
the Christophanies of the New Testament — the incar- 
nation, resurrection, ascension, and advent in glory, 
whereby the Messiah taught mankind the«great lessons 
of redemption. And the Theophany of the Divine 
Spirit at Pentecost was a visible and audible pledge of 
His permanent residence in the Church during the era 
of grace. If mankind needed additional theophanies, 
doubtless they would be given by the God of all grace; 
but those recorded in the Bibfe, from Genesis to the 
Apocalypse, make a royal highway of light and glory 
throughout Biblical history, and give sufficient assur- 
ance of the presence of the Triune God with the people 
of God until the end of the age, and the accomplish- 
ment of the destinies of the world and man. 

(2.) The Institutions of the Old Testament. — The insti- 
tutions of the Old Testament religion are of a most 
elaborate character. Whatever theory we may hold 
as to their origin and development, whether given by 
Moses at the basis of the history, or from a long series 
of prophets and priests during the history, they present 

* Is. lvii. 6. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 45 

a majestic system. About the throne-room of God, 
where the theophanic presence dwelt, were gathered 
sacred places, sacred furniture, sacred times, sacred 
orders of priesthood, rites of sacrifice and purification, 
and holy rules for life and conduct. These doubtless 
belong to the region of external religion, and to a 
lower stage in the religious training of man. The Old 
Testament prophets knew as well as we that they were 
mere forms, invalid without holy contents of grace, that} 
God dwells not in temples made by hands, the heavens 
cannot contain Him in all their wondrous heights and 
breadths ; * obedience was ever more sacred than 
sacrifice^ and all the beasts of the forests were God's ; 
the cattle gathered in thousands upon the hills, how 
could men satisfy Him with one of the flock or herd? J 
Pure hearts were vastly more important than clean 
hands.§ The universal priesthood of Israel || was older 
and more important than the Levitical and Aaronic 
orders. 

This magnificent religious system is pure and holy 
throughout. A holy God can be worshipped only by a 
holy people, and in ceremonies of holiness. Hence, 
there was not, and could not be, any of the cruelty, 
licentiousness, intemperance, and manifold vices that 
were inseparably entwined in the institutions of the 
other great religions of the world. Divine institutions 
are forms of grace, dignity, and beauty, to set forth 
the wonders of redemption. They point forward, as 
by myriad flames of light, to the Messiah, who absorbs 
them in the sunshine of His presence. They then pass 
away as the shades of the night, when first they see 
the eyelids of the dawn.T They become, for all ages 

* 1 Kings viii. 27. t 1 Sam. xv. 22, 23. % Ps, 1. 8-14. 

§ Is. i. 10-17 ; Ps - xxvi ' 6 - I Ex - xix - 5-6- IT Col. ii. 17. 



46 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

and all men, the appropriate symbols of the universal 
religion. They evince by their history and their real- 
ization that God had for a season clothed Himself with 
these forms and ceremonies for the enlightenment and 
guidance of mankind. 

B.— THE FAITH OF THE BIBLE. 

The Faith of the Bible embraces the three topics : 
God, Man, and Redemption. 

(i.) The Doctrine of God. — The God of the Bible is 
one God, not merely the God of a family, a tribe, a 
land, a nation, but' the God of all the earth. It is true, 
Israel learned this only by degrees — but nowhere in 
the Bible do we find any recognition of other gods as 
having a place in a pantheon. God is sovereign of 
angels, seraphim and cherubim, of the hosts of heaven, 
as well as of Israel and mankind. The God of the Bible 
is spirit — He transcends the universe that He created, 
governs and directs to its appointed end, but He is im- 
manent in His universe, inhabiting it and by His energy 
shaping all its forces. The God of the Bible is a per- 
son, bearing proper names, the most significant of which, 
Jahveh, indicates His personal interest in and guid- 
ance of His people, a person who may be approached 
in prayer and praise, and who recognizes His worship- 
pers, bestowing upon them blessings of every kind. 
The God of the Bible is a living God, the fountain 
of every life and activity, living in all life, moving in 
all motion. 

The Being of God in the Bible is still high above the 
best attainments of philosophical theism, and the most 
skilful constructions of the S3^stematic theologian. 
When we turn from the best of them to the God of 
the Bible, it is like rising from earth to heaven. A 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 47 

new doctrine of God is one of the greatest needs of 
our time.* The Bible gives it to us if we will only look 
at it and embrace it. 

How was it possible for any ancient writer to have 
conceived or imagined such a God, unless God had 
presented Himself to him in the forms of the Reason, 
and he had seen and known Him as the only living and 
true God ? 

The attributes of God as set forth in the evolutions 
of Biblical Theology have none of those faults that 
appear more or less in the best systems of Theology.f 
That God is just, righteous, a God of equity and judg- 
ment, is as clear as the day. The great sovereign of the 
earth must do justice ; we need no Bible to tell us that. 
But the favorite attribute of the Old Testament and 
the New is the attribute of mercy, because this attri- 
bute man needs most to know, and it is not so evident 
in the light of nature. The mercy of God is the theme 
upon which the histories and the prophets, the singers 
and the sages alike delight to dwell. The greatest of 
the theophanies granted to Moses was in order to reveal 
God as the gracious, compassionate, the long-suffering, 
abounding in mercy and faithfulness.^: The love of 
God rises to its heights in the fatherly love of Deu- 
teronomy^ and the earlier Isaiah] and Jeremiah ;^[ in 
the marital love of Hosea,** Zephaniah, and the second 
Isaiahff — a love to an unfaithful wife, who has dis- 
graced her husband and herself by many adulteries ; JJ 
and a child who rewards the faithful father with such 
persistent disobedience, that he must be beaten to 



* Briggs' Whither, pp. 93 seq. t Briggs' Whither, pp. 95 seq. 

% Ex. xxxiv. 6-7. § Deut. iv. 37 ; vii. 13 ; x. 15 ; xxxii. 6 seq. 

I Is. i. 2 seq. T[ chap, xxx.-xxxi. ** Chap, i.-iii. 

+t Is. liv. 1-17 ; Ixii. %% Hos. i.-ii. 



48 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

death and raised from the dead in order to be saved.* 
The love of God as taught in the Old Testament is hard 
for the Jew or the Christian to understand. It trans- 
cends human experience. It seems so impossible even 
for God, that men must be explaining it away. These 
wonderful chapters of the Old Testament are neglected 
in all of our creeds and systems of divinity — because 
these all exaggerate the divine justice and veracity, 
and fear lest God should be too merciful. Like Jonah, 
they have not been able to conceive how it is possible 
for God to redeem the great cities of heathendom. 
They have not seen that He could have any compas- 
sion on the Samaritans and the Moabites, who do not 
belong to the Israel of God, but are the enemies of the 
historic faith.f They have seen the throne of God 
and its pillars of righteousness and justice, and have 
supposed that sovereignty was enthroned there. They 
have not seen the love that was seated on the throne, 
and its messengers of mercy and faithfulness going 
forth with salvation to the children of men.J 

The love of God as taught in the Old Testament 
transcends human powers of conception. None could 
have taught such love who had not seen the loving 
countenance of God, and experienced the pulsation of 
that love in their own hearts. The love of God in the 
Bible is an invincible, a triumphant authority that in- 
vokes the loving obedience of men. 

It is not necessary to depreciate the love of God in 
the Old Testament in order to exalt the love of the 
Messiah. The love of God in the Old Testament is 
the preparation to understand the love of God in the 

* Jer. xxxi. 18-20 ; Hos. xi. 8, 9 ; xiii. 14. 

+ How shall we revise the Westminster Confession 0/ Faith ? pp. 98 seq . 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 
% Ps. lxxxix. 14. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 49 

New Testament, who so loved the world, as to give His 
only begotten Son for its salvation.* O, when will 
men learn that the Bible means exactly what it says I 
It may destroy our logic and our syllogism, our systems 
and our methods. These we have too long regarded as 
authorities. Logic and syllogism, system and method, 
need constant criticism, verification, and revision • for 
too often they omit the essential thing. Their induc- 
tions are too narrow, their comprehension is too lim- 
ited ; they beg their premises and jump to their con- 
clusions. The love of God to the world is more 
important than all the systems devised by men. It 
will shine forever as the central sun of the universe, 
when all the creeds and theologies have been buried in 
the oblivion of the eternities. It will go on through 
the centuries of the world, darting its rays of heavenly 
light, its beams of divine fire, and its regenerating and 
transforming movements, until the world knows that 
God loves the world, and the world adores Him wi-th 
loving worship. 

(2.) Doctrine of Man. — The doctrine of Man in the 
Bible is divine doctrine. A twin mirror shows man 
what he is in sin and misery, and what he is to be in 
holiness and happiness. 

The Word of God is a revelation of the sin of man. 
Sin is exposed in the interests of redemption, that it 
may be brought to the consciousness of every reader of 
the Bible. The conscience approves the voice of the 
Spirit saying, " Thou art the man/'f when our sins 
disclose themselves in the picture gallery of the Bible, 
and we are convicted before the internal tribunal by a 
divine voice speaking with an authority that cannot be 



* John iii. 16. t 2 Sam. xii. 7. 



5Q THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

questioned, bringing us to temporal judgment, that we 
may escape the ultimate doom. 

The Bible presents sinful man in the midst of an 
original innocency and an ultimate perfection. Sin is 
only a temporary condition. Jew and Christian alike 
exaggerate the original innocency and depreciate the 
ultimate perfection.* The exaggeration of the original 
innocency is in the interest of an original righteous- 
ness, which, like a dress, might be removed as a punish- 
ment of sin and then put on again by grace. 

Protestant theologians have exaggerated the original 
righteousness in order to magnify the guilt of our first 
parents. They thus come in conflict with ethical and 
religious philosophy. The Bible is not responsible for 
these exaggerations. The original man was innocent 
and s-inless, but not possessed of that righteous and 
moral excellence that comes only by discipline and 
heavenly training. The temptation was a necessary 
means of grace. Man did not make his religious prog- 
ress in the straight line of faith and obedience, but in 
the curved line of sin and redemption. 

But the most important thing in Biblical Anthropol- 
ogy is the ideal of mankind. Man was created to be 
the lord of nature, the culmination of its evolutions. 
Man was made to be God-like ; and though he sought 
it in the paths of disobedience, he is sure to gain it on 
the highway of redemption. Man was one in origin, 
and cannot be any other than one in the plan of God.f 
The processes of redemption ever keep the race in 
mind. The Bible tells us of a race origin, a race sin, a 
race ideal, a race redeemer, and a race redemption. % 

* Briggs' Whither, pp. 107 seq. 
t Briggs' Messianic Prophecy, pp. 69 seq., 476 seq. 

X No one can understand the doctrine of the Incarnation who does not con- 
ceive of a relation of the Messiah to the race. My revered teacher, Henry B. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 51 

These ideals of the Bible are high above reality. They 
are so grand and glorious that they have been persist- 
ently misunderstood and perverted by men. None of 
us rise to their transcendent glories. 

God holds these twin mirrors before us to drive us 
from sin and to compel us to holiness. Divine author- 
ity in the Bible calls to every one of us : Forsake sin 
and live a perfect life ; come unto Me and be My son, 
My holy one, the child of My good pleasure. 

(3.) Redemption. — Redemption is born of the love of 
God ; it aims at the transformation of the sinful and 
suffering race of man into the image of God. It com- 
prehends the whole nature of man, his whole life, and 
the entire race. The history of the world is the divine 
discipline of mankind. 

(a) The Old Testament doctrine of Redemption is 
chiefly concerned in the material interests of man. In 
the vast majority of cases it has to do with salvation 
from enemies, from afflictions and sorrows, from pov- 
erty and from death. Our Saviour's ministry was 
chiefly to the poor and the outcasts in Israel, the pub- 
licans and the harlots ; and the redemption that He 
gave them was not merely the forgiveness of sins, but 
redemption from physical sufferings. The Christianity 
of Christ is to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to give 

Smith, says : " The destiny of man in Christ is to come to the measure of the 
stature of his fulness. Christ is the very ideal of humanity realized. Even 
in a human point of view, He is the consummate flower of the human race, a 
character unique, in wisdom, love, and holiness. Not only in the individual 
life and individual perfection does the relation subsist between man and Christ, 
but it also holds of man as a whole, of the collective race, of man in history. 
We are all to come into the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of 

God He who gives the law to history is the law-giver of the race. 

In Him, and in Him alone, the secrets of humanity are hid, its enigmas re- 
solved, its salvation insured. He who redeems the race must be the Head and 
Lord of the race. The whole human family finds its centre, its crown, its 
peace, in Him. "— System 0/ Christian Theology, pp. 383-4. 



52 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

drink to the thirsty, to comfort all that mourn. Such 
are the tests that the Messiah applies in His royal 
judgment, whether His servants have followed His ex- 
ample in doing just these things in their ministry.* 

The Redemption taught in the Bible aims to remove 
all the ills that flesh is heir to. There can be no Dark- 
est Africa or Darkest London which the light of Re- 
demption may not illuminate with heavenly influences. 
Poverty, vice, and crime are inconsistent with Chris- 
tianity. Christianity has undertaken to remove them 
from the world. The Bible gives us the principles, the 
examples, and the divine authority for their extirpa- 
tion. Christianity is inconsistent with the present 
social condition of New York, and the other great 
cities of the world. We have no right to the name 
of Christians ; we bring reproach on the name of Jesus 
Christ ; we dishonor the God of the Bible, and are 
stumbling-blocks in the way of the suffering multitudes, 
obstructing their way to God, and their entrance into 
the kingdom of heaven, if we do not, with all our 
souls, strive to relieve their misery and want. The 
Bible, through and through, insists upon the redemp- 
tion of the bodies of men, as well as their souls, and 
of the whole framework of human society. This heav- 
enly teaching is so against the prejudices and the 
attainments of mankind, that it is an unmistakable 
evidence of the divine authority of the Scriptures that 
so strongly urge it upon us. 

{b) The Redemption of the Bible comprehends the 
whole process of grace. Modern Protestants have un- 
duly emphasized the beginning of redemption, justi- 
fication by faith alone.f The slight put upon Christian 
love prevented many a devout soul, like Staupitz, 

* Matth. xxv. 31-46. t Briggs' Whither, pp. 142 seq. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 53 

from joining in the Reformation. One of the disciples 
of Luther taught that good works were hurtful to sal- 
vation ; and a practical, if not a theoretical, Antinomi- 
anism has too often been one of the Adam's apples of 
Protestantism. 

James has a word for the men of this generation — 
Faith without works is dead. * A justification that 
does not lead on to sanctification gives no credentials 
of genuineness. A faith that does not result in a life 
of repentance discredits itself. 

The movement called Methodism laid too much 
stress upon the experience of regeneration at the be- 
ginning of the Christian's life.f But a regeneration 
that does not exhibit a real, earnest Christian life, 
fruitful in good works, is not a regeneration into the 
kingdom of God, whatever else it may be. 

The Bible rises high above the faults of modern 
theology, and comprehends in its redemption of man 
his justification, sanctification, and glorification ; his re- 
generation, his renovation, and his transformation ; his 
faith, his repentance, and his holy love. No one who is 
not entirely saved can sustain the judgment of the day of 
doom4 If this Biblical doctrine could be impressed upon 
the men of our day, the authority of God would disclose 
itself in a transformation of the world, and the intro- 
duction of an era in which holiness would be the aim 
of mankind. 

[c] Another fault of Protestant theology is in its lim- 
itation of the process of redemption to this world,§ and 
its neglect of those vast periods of time which have 



* James ii. 26. t Briggs' Whither, pp. 118 seq. 

\ 1 Thess. iii. 13 ; 1 Cor. i. 8 ; Rom. viii. 29-30 ; Eph. iv. 13-26. 
§ Briggs' article, Redemption after Death, in Mag. 0/ Christian Literature, 
Dec, 1889. See also Whither, pp. 206 seq. 



54 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

elapsed for most men in the Middle State between death 
and the resurrection. The Roman Catholic Church is 
firmer here, though it smears the Biblical doctrine with 
not a few hurtful errors. The reaction against this limi- 
tation, as seen in the theory of second probation, is not 
surprising. I do not find this doctrine in the Bible,* 
but I do find in the Bible the doctrine of a Middle 
State of conscious higher life in the communion with 
Christ and the multitude of the departed of all ages;f 
and of the necessity of entire sanctification, in order 
that the work of redemption may be completed.;); 
There is no authority in the Scriptures, or in the 
creeds of Christendom, for the doctrine of immediate 
sanctification at death. The only sanctification known 
to experience, to Christian orthodoxy, and to the 
Bible, is progressive sanctification.§ Progressive sanc- 
tification after death, is the doctrine of the Bible and 
the Church ; and it is of vast importance in our times 
that we should understand it, and live in accordance 
with it. The bugbear of a judgment immediately after 
death, and the illusion of a magical transformation 
in the dying hour || should be banished from the 
world. They are conceits derived from the Ethnic 
religions, and without basis in the Bible or Christian 
experience as expressed in the symbols of the Church. 
The former makes death a terror to the best of men, 
the latter makes human life and experience of no 
effect ; and both cut the nerves of Christian activity 
and striving after sanctification. Renouncing them as 
hurtful, unchristian errors, we look with hope and joy 
for the continuation of the processes of grace, and the 



* Whither, pp. 217 seg. t 2 Cor. v. 1-9 ; Heb. xii. 22-24, etc. 

\ Matth. v. 48 ; John xvii. 17 ; Rom. viii. 29-30 ; 1 John iii. 2. 
§ West. Confession, chap. xiii. | Whither, p. 195. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 55 

wonders of redemption in the company of the blessed, 
to which the faithful are all hastening ; and through 
these blessed hopes we enter into the communion of 
all saints, and have a happy consciousness of the one 
holy catholic Church, whose centre and majestic frame 
are chiefly in the skies, the one body of the one Christ. 
id) The Biblical redemption is a redemption of our 
race and of universal nature. The Bible teaches that 
the material universe shares in the destiny of man, and 
is in throes of birth for this blessed hope.* As the 
ancient Jews limited redemption to Israel and over- 
looked the nations, so the Church limited redemption 
to those who were baptized, and excluded the heathen 
and the unbaptized ; and Presbyterians have too often 
limited redemption by their doctrine of Election. The 
Bible knows no such limitations. The Bible teaches 
election, but an election of love.f Loving only the 
elect is earthly, human teaching. Electing men to sal- 
vation by the touch of divine love — that is heavenly 
doctrine. The one drives men away in despair, the 
other unites men with joy to the love of God.:): The 
Bible does not teach universal salvation, but it does 
teach the salvation of the world, of the race of man, 
and that cannot be accomplished by the selection of a 
limited number of individuals from the mass. The 
holy arm that worketh salvation does not contract its 
hand in grasping only a few ; it stretches its loving fin- 
gers so as to comprehend as many as possible — a defi- 
nite number, but multitudes that no one can number. 
The salvation of the world can only mean the world 

* Rom. viii. 18-25. f Whither, pp. 95 seq. 

\ " Election is the expression of God's infinite love towards the human race, 
redeeming man from sin through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit bringing him 
into this state of redemption, so far as it is consistent with the interests of God's 
great and final kingdom."— H. B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, p. 505. 



56 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

as a whole, compared with which the unredeemed will 
be so few and insignificant, and evidently beyond the 
reach of redemption by their own act of rejecting it and 
hardening themselves against it, and by descending into 
such depths of demoniacal depravity in the Middle 
State, that they will vanish from the sight of the re- 
deemed as altogether and irredeemably evil, and never 
more disturb the harmonies of the saints. 

C. — BIBLICAL ETHICS. 

We are now prepared for the Ethics of the Bible, the 
fruitage of Theology, the test of all the rest. Biblical 
Ethics presents us an advancing system of morals — God 
showing His holy face and character and the sublime 
precepts of morality as men were able to bear them. 

In the field of Biblical Ethics there is considerable 
criticism at the present time. Biblical Ethics have not 
been so carefully studied as Biblical Religion and Bibli- 
cal Faith ; therefore the principles that determine their 
development are not so clearly understood. There is 
ample room for criticism in the ethical precepts and in 
the conduct of the holy men of the Bible. 

The ancient worthies, Noah and Abraham, Jacob 
and Judah, David and Solomon, were in a low stage 
of moral advancement. Doubtless it is true, that we 
would not receive such men into our families, if they 
lived among us and did such things now as they did 
then. We might be obliged to send them to prison, 
lest they should defile the community with their exam- 
ple. But they do not live now ; they lived in an early 
age of the world, when the divine exposition of sin was 
not so searching, and the divine law of righteousness 
was not so evident. They were not great sinners to 
their age ; they were the saints of God. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 57 

Abraham was the father of the faithful,* the great 
hero of faith for all time, and it is an honor for a Chris- 
tian to count him as father. When he went into the 
abode of the dead, he held his pre-eminence among the 
departed. He made up for his defects in this life by- 
advancing in the school of sanctification there open to 
him. Let us not suppose that we have passed beyond 
him in sinlessness or ethical elevation. Our blessed 
Lord sees the poor Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, the 
synonym of Paradise itself, f 

Jacob was crafty and treacherous, but he was a pil- 
grim to the Holy Land, one whose whole ambition 
was set upon the holy places, one who is the father of 
all pilgrims, one who, therefore, gave his name to the 
Holy Land and to the entire Israel of God. 

We should look more at their saintly characters that 
have given them their place among the heroes of the 
faithful. Thus we would trace the moral development 
of Israel, and see it advancing through the centuries 
until it reaches its height in the holy Messiah. 

It has been too much the custom to use the ancient 
heroes of the faith as examples to rebuke modern sin- 
ners. They ought to be held up as examples to make 
modern heroes. And so it has been thought that Israel 
was a nation chiefly remarkable for its stiff neck and 
stubborn heart, for its unfaithfulness and its apostasy. 
Not so do we read in the Old Testament. Israel was 
the people of God, dearly beloved, and faithful in the 
main, ever advancing, never attaining the ideal. I fear 
that the Christian Church does not present so good a 
history as the people of Israel in the olden time. If 
Israel did not live up to the ethical principles of Moses 
and the prophets, have we lived up to the ethics of 

* Rom. iv. 16-17. t Luke xvi. 23. 



58 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

Jesus and His apostles? It is just this feature of Bib- 
lical Ethics that assures us that divine authority is in it. 
It presents an ideal ever far above historical reality. 

The Ten Words rise before us in majesty as the guide 
of morality for the Christian Church, and are as au- 
thoritative as when first uttered by a divine voice from 
Sinai. 

Most of the ethical provisions of the Pentateuchal 
codes were of local and temporal validity, but there are 
many principles in them that are invaluable hints for 
the solution of the social problems of our day. There 
are ethical precepts in the Psalter and the Prophets, 
and, above all, in the Wisdom Literature of the Old 
Testament that we need to study and to know. It is a 
very significant fact that this Wisdom Literature of the 
Old Testament, which is essentially ethical, has been so 
neglected by theologians. The Book of Proverbs, 
the Book of Job, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes 
are the masterpieces of Old Testament ethics. No por- 
tion of the Old Testament is likely to prove more 
useful in the ethical age upon which we are now enter- 
ing. The holy God calls holy men into His service : 

" Who of us can abide with devouring fire ? 
Who of us can abide with everlasting burnings ? 
One walking in perfect righteousness, and speaking uprightly, 
Refusing the spoil of oppression, 
Shaking his palms from holding a bribe, 
Shutting his ears from hearing of bloodshed, 
And closing his eyes from seeing evil." * 

If the ethical parts of the Old Testament have been 
neglected, this is still more the case with the ethical 
parts of the New Testament. It has been said that 
Calvinists come to a halt in a certain chapter of the 

* Is. xxxiii. 15 seq. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 59 

Epistle to the Romans, but it may also be said that the 
Arminians come to a halt but a short distance further 
on. Neither Calvinist nor Arminian has risen to the 
ethical heights of the closing chapters of the epistles 
to the Romans and the Ephesians. The Epistle of 
James is ethical throughout ; it has not been a favorite 
epistle for Protestants. The epistles of John have been 
too high in their mystic elevation for the modern world. 

But the greatest sin against the Bible has been 
the neglect of the ethics of Jesus. If one studies 
the theology of Jesus he is impressed by the fact 
that it is profoundly ethical, not only in the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, but also throughout His discourses. 
The holy man, living such a holy life, how could it be 
otherwise than that holy words were ever on His lips? 
Those who question the historicity of the life of Jesus 
and regard many of His teachings as misunderstood by 
the evangelists who report them, stand in awe and bow 
in adoration when they consider His ethical precepts 
and recognize their divinity. 

Tolstoi says Christians think that Jesus did not mean 
what He said. Tolstoi's criticism is severe, but is it 
not just ? If we really believed that Jesus meant what 
He said, how could we live such selfish lives ? 
The words of Jesus are so high above us that it 
seems impossible to realize them in actual life, and 
so we strive to get a meaning out of them that will 
be useful to us, and we bury the sublime ideal in a 
fictitious and temporary explanation.* It is my opinion 



* " The ecclesiastical Christ is to a large extent not the Christ of the Gospels, 
but a creation of scholastic theology. Notwithstanding all our preaching, 
Jesus Christ is not well known. That He is not well known is partly the fault 
of our preaching. Men are not permitted to see Jesus with open face, but only 
through the thick veil of a dogmatic system. The religious spirit of Jesus, 
His attitude towards the religion in vogue in J uda2a in His time, and its grounds. 



$0 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

that if the grace of God should so impel a man that he 
could be transformed into the image of the holy Jesus, 
and, like Jesus, rebuke sin in high places and trouble 
the people with his unapproachable holiness, he would 
earn the reward of Jesus even in this generation — at the 
hands of Christian theologians and ecclesiastics. The 
cry would resound through the streets of New York, 
" Crucify him ! crucify him ! " 

The words of Jesus, like the life of Jesus, are the 
ideals of perfection, that men thus far have been unable 
to understand and realize ; but they will be realized when 
the world has been so trained and disciplined in the 
progress of sanctification that it shall become like Him. 

D. — THE MESSIAH. 

Thus far we have spoken of the Messiah only indi- 
rectly ; but every line of religion, doctrine, and morals 
has brought us unto Him. The Messiah is the culmi- 
nation of the Old Testament. He is the pivot of His- 
tory. All through these nineteen centuries Christians 
have been learning from their Lord, and yet how little 
do we know of Him. Each period in the history of the 
Church has been so deeply impressed with some small 
portion of what the Scriptures have revealed about 
Him, that it has devoted itself exclusively to that, has 
exaggerated that, and left other equally important 
phases of the doctrine unexplored. 

Sometimes the deity of Christ has been so exalted 

His humane sympathies, His thoughts of God, His ethical ideal, have been 
allowed to fall into the background. Hence types of piety have sprung up 
within the Church, which, whatever virtues they may possess, are not charac- 
teristically Christian. It has become possible to be very religious and yet be 
very unchristian, not only largely ignorant of Christ, but antagonistic to Him 
in spirit ; to be, in short, a modern reproduction of the Pharisee, imagining 
one's self to be one of the most faithful friends of Jesus, while hostile to all the 
true Christian interests of the time." — A. B. Bruce, Kingdom of God ', p. 330. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 61 

that men have forgotten His humanity. Then others 
have been so absorbed in the wonders of His humanity 
that they have not seen His divinity. Then the com- 
plex nature, the union of the human and divine in the 
Theanthropos, — the profoundest minds of the Christian 
centuries have thought upon it and unfolded some of 
its glories, but it is still like the very heavens for heights 
of mystery and glory. The Messiah's state of humilia- 
tion has so absorbed men that they have neglected His 
state of exaltation and glory. In His state of humilia- 
tion modern Protestants have absorbed themselves 
in the crucifixion and death, and the doctrine of the 
Atonement involved therein. The wondrous doctrine 
of the Incarnation has been neglected until recent 
times.* It was the merit of my beloved teacher, Henry 
B. Smith, that he made Incarnation in order to Redemp- 
tion\ the structural principle of his theology. The 
holy life of Jesus, long neglected, has in recent years 
been studied as never before. But the Messiah's de- 
scent into the abode of the dead — a doctrine of great 
importance to the ancient Church \ — of His resurrec- 
tion — His enthronement — His reign of grace — His 
second advent — O, how these have been neglected ! 

The Messianic idea of the Old Testament and the 
Christology of the New Testament are vastly fuller and 
richer and grander than any one has imagined. The 
Christ of the Bible will exert a much greater power 
upon the coming generations when they grasp the full 
Biblical doctrine and cease expending their strength 
and exhausting their energies in the speculative elabo- 
ration of some few of its phases. § 

* Whither, pp. 112 seq. 

t Henry B. Smith's System of Christian Theology, 

\ See Redemption after Death. Mag. Christ. Lit., Dec, 1889. 

§ How shall we Revise ? pp. 20 seq. 



62 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. , 

In all departments of Biblical Theology there is new- 
life and new doctrine and new morals for the Church of 
God. More light is about to break forth from the Ho- 
ly Scriptures upon the Christian world, — light for all the 
churches, for all men, for all nations. The old methods 
of building on selected texts and isolated passages, 
which you will find in all the creeds and in all the dog- 
matic systems,* is about to pass away. The inductive 
study of the Bible forces us to study every word, sen- 
tence, and clause, and rise in the inductive process un- 
til the whole organism of the Bible is presented to us. 
Such study of the Bible, so far as I have been able to 
pursue it, has made it to me the freshest, the newest, 
the most wonderful of Books; has brought about in my 
mind a different conception in every department of 
Theology. And many of those things that once seemed 
to be probabilities on the basis of speculative theology 
and confessional theology have, in the light of God's 
Word and in the conviction of divine authority, come 
to be certainties — the verities of God. 

I have not departed in any respect from the ortho- 
dox teaching of the Christian Church as set forth in its 
official creeds. I have had the inestimable privilege of 
learning, as a student and a friend, from two of the great- 
est Systematic Theologians of our century — Henry B. 
Smith and Isaac A. Dorner. These built upon the 
Bible and the Creeds, the History of Doctrine and the 
highest attainments of the Human Reason. Such Sys- 
tematic Theologians the Church greatly needs at the 
present time, and no one can value them and their 
work more than I do. These never set up their systems 
as tests of orthodoxy. They renounce scholasticism 



* How shall we Revise ? pp. 137 seq. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 63 

and dogmatism. For the dogmatism of mere traditional 
opinion and of the dogmaticians, I have no respect. 
Their speculations are worthy of no more consideration 
than the speculations of other scholars. But for the 
creeds of Christ's Church I have the greatest respect, 
for I, am one of those who believes that God inhabits 
His Church and guides it in its official decisions, not 
inerrantly in every utterance, but in the essential doc- 
trines in which the universal Church is in concord. 
But the theology of the creeds marks only the con- 
sensus of attainment of the Church in the several stages 
of advance in the history of doctrine. They are far be- 
low the Biblical ideal, and, therefore, the best of them 
seems to give us such a small theology when set in the 
length and breadth, the heights and depths of the the- 
ology of the Bible. 

As I have recently said, " Christian churches should 
go right on in the lines drawn by their own history and 
their own symbols ; this will in the end lead to greater 
heights, in which there will be concord. Imperfect 
statements will be corrected by progress. All forms of 
error will disappear before the breath of truth. We are 
not to tear down what has cost our fathers so much. 
We are rather to strengthen the foundations and but- 
tress the buildings as we build higher. Let the light 
shine higher and higher, the clear, bright light of day. 
Truth fears no light. Light chases error away. True 
orthodoxy seeks the full blaze of the noontide sun. 
In the light of such a day the unity of Christendom 
will be gained.' 



> * 



* Whither, gp. 297-8. 



64: THE INAUGURAL ADDRE8S. 

IV.— THE HARMONY OF THE SOURCES OF DIVINE 
AUTHORITY. 

I have endeavored to lead you through the obstruc- 
tions that confront the student of the Bible into the 
Holy Word itself, that you might recognize the au- 
thority of God in the Religion, Faith, and Morals of 
the Bible. I must now ask you to go back with me 
and use the advantages we have gained for a brief re- 
view of those other seats of divine authority — the 
Church and the Reason. 

If God really speaks to men in these three centres, 
there ought to be no contradiction between them. 
They ought to be complementary, and they should 
combine in a higher unity for the guidance and the 
comfort of men. It is my profound conviction that we 
are on the threshold of just such a happy reconciliation. 
The discrepancies that men have found have not been 
in the authority of God Himself, or in the essential 
principles that have enveloped it, but in those formal 
and circumstantial things upon which human nature in 
its weakness and its depravity ever lays so much stress. 
Removing these human conceits and follies and these 
obstructions erected by well-meaning but misguided 
men from the Bible, the Church, and the Reason, it 
will be manifest that they are, they always have been, 
and they always will be harmonious. 

It is human folly to set the Bible against the Church, 
or either or both of them against the Reason. When- 
ever this is done, the opposition is only in the human 
forms and settings. It is clear to me that the Bible 
needs the Church and the Reason ere it can exert its 
full power upon the life of men. 

Institutional Christianity was established by Christ 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 65 

and His apostles, and no one can safely ignore it. It is 
the need of our time in that advance toward Church 
Unity that we are about to make, and to make with so 
much energy and decision. It is necessary that we 
should know what Institutional Christianity really is, 
that we should be members of the visible Church and 
share in the sacrifices and triumphs of the kingdom of 
God. The Bible, from the very nature of the case, leads 
us through its forms into the presence-chamber of God, 
but our minds are filled at the same time with the his- 
toric forms of the ancient world. It is the office of the 
Church, in the use of its institutions, to bring us into 
communion with the Triune God in the forms of the 
modern world, and give us the assurance of His pres- 
ence with the Church through its history, and with us 
in the hour and moment of our use of its institutions. 
The Church unites with the Bible in giving us the as- 
surance of God's presence and authority throughout 
History, Christian as well as Hebrew, and of His gra- 
cious help in the present. It gives us the blessed ex- 
perience of the communion of saints. It opens the 
eyes to see that we are in the outer ranks of innumer- 
able lines of the host of the living God, ever on the 
march through the life in this world into the gates of 
Paradise and onward on the highway of holiness to 
the throne of God and the Lamb which ever bounds 
the horizon of the beatific vision. The neglect of the 
Church as a means of grace retards the use of the 
Bible itself as a means of grace and dulls our sensitive- 
ness to the presence of God. 

The Reason also has its rights, its place and import- 
ance in the economy of Redemption. I rejoice at the 
age of Rationalism, with all its wonderful achieve- 
ments in philosophy. I look upon it as preparing men 



QQ THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

to use their reasons in the last great age of the world. 
Criticism will go on with its destruction of errors, and 
its verification of truth and fact. The human mind 
will learn to know its powers and to use them. The 
forms of the reason, the conscience, the religious feel- 
ing, the aesthetic taste — all the highest energies of our 
nature, will exert themselves as never before. God 
will appear in their forms, and give an inward assur- 
ance and certainty greater than that given in former 
ages. These increased powers of the human soul will 
enable men to search those higher mysteries of Biblical 
Theology that no theologian has yet mastered, and 
those mysteries that are wrapt up in the institutions of 
the Church, to all who really know them. It is im- 
possible that the Bible and the Church should ever ex- 
ert their full power until the human Reason, trained 
and strained to the uttermost, rise to the heights of 
its energies, and reach forth after God and His Christ 
with absolute devotion and self-renouncing love. Then 
we may expect on the heights of theological specula- 
tion, and from the peaks of Christian experience, that 
those profound doctrines that now divide Christendom 
by their antinomies will appear as the two sides of the 
same law, or the foci of a divine ellipse, which is itself 
but one of the curves in that conic section of God's 
dominion, in which, in loving wisdom, He has appointed 
the lines of our destiny. 

Go out into the country in the late winter or early 
spring, and you will see, everywhere, great activity. 
The farmers are at work with axe, and saw, and knives, 
the instruments of destruction, cutting off the limbs of 
trees, and pruning vines and bushes, and rooting out 
weeds ; fires are running over the fields and meadows, 
the air is filled with smoke, and it seems as if every- 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 67 

thing were going to destruction. But they are de- 
stroying the dead wood, dry and brittle stubble, and 
noxious weeds. They are removing them out of the 
way of the life that is beating beneath the surface of 
the ground, and throbbing in tree and bush. In a few 
days the fields will be mantled in living green, the 
trees and bushes will wave their leaves joyously, and 
deck themselves with blossoms of every variety of 
beauteous form and color, and the world will rejoice in 
a new spring-time. Thus is it at the present time in 
the higher world of religion and morals. Criticism is 
at work with knife and fire. Let us cut down every- 
thing that is dead and harmful, every kind of dead 
orthodoxy, every species of effete ecclesiasticism, 
all merely formal morality, all those dry and brittle 
fences that constitute denominationalism, and are the 
barriers of Church Unity. Let us burn up every form 
of false doctrine, false religion, and false practice. Let 
us remove every incumbrance out of the way for a new 
life ; the life of God is moving throughout Christen- 
dom, and the spring-time of a new age is about to come 
upon us : 

" Let the wilderness and the solitary places be glad, 

And let the desert rejoice, and let it blossom as the rose ; 

Let it blossom abundantly, and let it rejoice, 

Even with joy and singing ; 

The glory of Lebanon has been given unto it, 

The excellency of Carmel and Sharon ; 

They see the glory of Jahveh, 

The excellency of our God. 

Strengthen ye the weak hands. 

And confirm the feeble knees. 

Say to the fearful of heart, Be strong, 

Fear not : behold your God, 

He cometh with vengeance, with a divine recompense ; 

He cometh to save you." — (Isai. xxxv. 1-4.) 



[// has been thought best to give the following extract from Dr. 
Briggs' "Biblical Study" pp. 390 seq M which presents his views 
of the idea, place, methods, and divisions of Biblical Theology. ] 



IV. 

THE TOSITION AND IMPORTANCE OF 
BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

Having considered the origin and history of Biblical 
Theology, we are now prepared to show its position and 
importance, and define it as to its idea, method, and sys- 
tem. (1) The idea of Biblical Theology. — Biblical The- 
ology is that theological discipline which presents the 
theology of the Bible in its historical formation within 
the canonical writings. The discipline limits itself 
strictly to the theology of the Bible, and thus excludes 
from its range the theology of the Apocryphal and Pseu- 
depigraphical writings of the Jewish and Christian sects, 
the ideas of the various external religious parties, and 
the religions of the world brought in contact with the 
people of God at different periods in their history. It 
is true that these must come into consideration for com- 
parative purposes in order to show their influence posi- 
tively and negatively upon the development of Biblical 
doctrine ; for the Biblical religion is a religion in the 
midst of a great variety of religions of the world, and 
its distinctive features can be shown only after the elim- 
ination of the features that are common with other re- 
ligions. We must show from the historical circumstances, 
the psychological preparations, and all the conditioning 

(69) 



70 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

influences, how far the origin and development of the 
particular type and the particular stage of religious de- 
velopment of Israel and the Church were influenced by 
these external forces. We must find the supernatural 
influence that originated and maintained the Biblical 
types and the Biblical religion as distinct and separate 
from all other religions. And then these other religious 
forces will not be employed as co-ordinate factors with 
the Biblical material, as is done by Reuss, Schwegler, 
and Kuenen, who make Biblical Theology simply a his- 
tory of religion, or of doctrine in the times of the Bible 
and in the Jewish nation. Rather these theological con- 
ceptions of other religions will be seen to be subordinate 
factors as influencing Biblical Theology from without, 
and not from within, as presenting the external occa- 
sions and conditions of its growth, and not its normal 
and regulative principles. The Biblical limit will be 
maintained ; for the Biblical material stands apart by 
itself, in that the theology therein contained is the 
theology of a divine Revelation, and thus distinguished 
from all other theologies, both as to its origin and its 
development ; for they give us either the products of 
natural religion in various normal and abnormal sys- 
tems, originating and developing under the influence of 
unguided or partially guided human religious strivings, 
or else are apostasies or deflections from the religion of 
revelation in its various stages of development. 

The discipline we have defined as presenting the The- 
ology of the Bible. It is true that the term Biblical The- 
ology is ambiguous as being too broad, having been em- 
ployed as a general term including Biblical Introduction, 
Hermeneutics, and so on. And yet we must have a broad 
term, for we cannot limit our discipline to Dogmatics, for 
Biblical Dogmatics, as rightly conceived, is a part of Sys- 



THE IDEA OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. fl 

tematic Theology, being aflriori and deductive in method. 
Biblical Dogmatics deduces the dogmas from the Bibli- 
cal material and arranges them in an a priori dogmatic 
system, presenting not so much the doctrines of the 
Bible in their simplicity and in their concrete form as 
they are given in the Scriptures themselves, but such 
doctrines as may be fairly derived from the Biblical ma- 
terial by the logical process, or can be gained by setting 
the Bible in the midst of philosophy and church tradition. 
We cannot deny to this department the propriety of using 
the name Biblical Dogmatics or even Biblical Theology. 
For -where a Dogmatic system derives its chief or only 
material from the Scriptures, there is force in its claim 
to be Biblical Theology. We do not, therefore, use the 
term Biblical Theology as applied to our discipline with 
the implication that a dogmatic system derived from the 
Bible is 7Z0?z-Biblical or not sufficiently Biblical, but as a 
term which has come to be applied to the discipline 
which we are now distinguishing from Biblical Dogmat- 
ics. Biblical Theology, in the sense of our discipline, 
and as distinguished from Biblical Dogmatics, cannot 
take a step beyond the Bible itself, or, indeed, beyond 
the particular writing or author under consideration at 
the time. Biblical Theology has to do only with the 
sacred author's conceptions, and has nothing whatever 
to do with the legitimate logical consequences. It is 
not to be assumed that either the author or his genera- 
tion argued out the consequences of their statements, 
still less discerned them by intuition ; although, on the 
other hand, we must always recognize that the religion 
and, indeed, the entire theology of a period or an au- 
thor may be far wider and more comprehensive than the 
record or records that have been left of it ; and that, in 
all cases, Biblical Theology will give us the minimum 



72 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

rather than the maximum of the theology of a period or 
author. But, on the other hand, we must also estimate 
the fact that this minimum is the inspired authority to 
which alone we can appeal. The only consequences 
with which Biblical Theology has to do are those his- 
torical ones that later Biblical writers gained in their ad- 
vanced knowledge of divine revelation, those conclusions 
that are true historically — whatever our subjective con- 
clusions may be as to the legitimate logical results of 
their statements. And even here the interpretation and 
use of later writers are not to be assigned to the authors 
themselves or the theology of their times. We would 
therefore urge that the term Biblical Dogmatics should 
be applied to that part of Dogmatics which rests upon 
the Bible and derives its material from the Bible by the 
legitimate use of its principles. Dogmatics as a theo- 
logical discipline, in our judgment, is far wider than the 
Biblical material that is employed by the dogmatician. 
The Biblical material should be the normal and regula- 
tive material, but the dogmatician will make use of the 
deductions from the Bible and other authorities that the 
Church has made in the history of doctrine and incor- 
porated in her creeds or preserved in the doctrinal treat- 
ises of the theologians. He will also make use of right 
reason, and of philosophy, and science, and the religious 
consciousness as manifest in the history of the Church 
and in the Christian life of the day. It is all-important 
that the various sources should be carefully discrimina- 
ted, and the Biblical material set apart by itself in Biblical 
Dogmatics, lest in the commingling of material, that 
should be regarded as Biblical which is /ztfTZ-Biblical, or 
extra Biblical, or contra Biblical, as has so often hap- 
pened in the working of ecclesiastical tradition. And, 
even then, when Biblical Dogmatics has been distin- 



THE IDEA OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 73 

guished in Systematic Theology, it should be held apart 
from Biblical Theology, for Biblical Dogmatics is the 
point of contact of Systematic Theology with Exegeti- 
cal Theology, and Biblical Theology is the point of con- 
tact of Exegetical Theology with Systematic Theology, 
each belonging to its own distinctive branch of theolo- 
gy with its characteristic methods and principles. That 
system of theology which would anxiously confine it- 
self to supposed Biblical material, to the neglect of the 
material presented by philosophy, science, literature, 
art, comparative religion, the history of doctrine, the 
symbols, the liturgies, and the life of the Church, and 
the pious religious consciousness of the individual or of 
Christian society, must be extremely defective, unscien- 
tific, and cannot make up for its defects by an appeal to 
the Scriptures and a claim to be Biblical. None of the 
great systematic theologians, from the most ancient 
times, have ever proposed any such course. It has been 
the resort of the feebler Pietists in Germany, and of the 
narrower Evangelicalism of Great Britain and America, 
doomed to defeat and destruction, for working in such 
contracted lines. 

We do not, therefore, present Biblical Theology as a 
substitute for Systematic Theology. Systematic Theol- 
ogy is more comprehensive than Biblical Theology can 
ever be. But we urge the importance of Biblical Theol- 
ogy in order to the important distinction that should be 
made, in the first place, between the Biblical sources and 
all other sources of Theology, and then, in the second 
place, to distinguish between the Biblical Theology as 
presented in the Scriptures themselves, and Biblical 
Dogmatics which makes legitimate deductions and appli- 
cations of the Biblical material. 

But Biblical Theology is wider than the doctrines of 



74 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

the Bible. It includes Ethics also. Here the school of 
Baur, and even Weiss and Van Oosterzee, would stop. 
But Schmid, Schultz, and Oehler are correct in taking 
Biblical Theology to include religion as well as doc- 
trines and morals, that is, those historic persons, facts, 
and relations which embody religious, dogmatical, and 
ethical ideas. This discrimination is important in System- 
atic Theology, but it is indispensable in Biblical Theol- 
ogy, where everything is still in the concrete. Thus, a 
fundamental question in the theology of the New Testa- 
ment, is what to do with the life of Jesus. The life of 
Jesus is, as Schmid shows, the fruitful source of His 
doctrine, and a theology which does not estimate it, 
lacks foundation and vital power. The life of Jesus may 
indeed be regarded from two distinct points of view, as 
a biographical, or a doctrinal and religious subject. The 
birth of Jesus may be regarded as a pure historical fact 
or as an incarnation. His suffering and death may be 
historical subjects, or as expressing atonement. His life 
may afford biographical matter or be considered as re- 
ligious, doctrinal, and ethical, in that His life was a new 
religious force, a redemptive influence and an ethical 
example. Biblical Theology will have to consider, there- 
fore, what the life of Jesus presents for its various de- 
partments. And so the great fact of Pentecost, the 
Christophanies to Peter, Paul, and John, and the apos- 
tolic council at Jerusalem must all be brought into 
consideration. And in the Old Testament we must 
consider the various covenants and the religious insti- 
tutions and laws that were grouped about them. With- 
out religion, with its persons, events, and institutions, 
Biblical Theology would lose its foundations, and with- 
out ethical results it would fail of its rich fruitage. 
We state, furthermore, that the discipline presents 



THE PLACE OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 75. 

the theology of the Bible in its historical formation. 
This does not imply that it limits itself to the consider- 
ation of the various particular conceptions of the various 
authors, writings, and periods, as Weiss and even Oehler 
maintain, but with Schmid, Messner, Van Oosterzee 
after Neander it seeks the unity in the variety ; ascertains 
the roots of the divergencies, traces them each in their 
separate historical development, shows them co-operat- 
ing in the formation of one organic system. For Biblical 
Theology would not present a mere conglomerate of 
heterogeneous material in a bundle of miscellaneous 
Hebrew literature, but would ascertain whether there is 
not some principle of organization ; and it finds that 
principle in a supernatural divine revelation and com- 
munication of redemption in the successive covenants 
of grace extending through many centuries, operating 
through many minds, and in a great variety of literary 
styles, employing all the faculties of man, and all the 
types of human nature, in order to the accomplishment 
of one massive, all-embracing, and everlasting Divine 
Word adapted to every age, every nation, every type of 
character, every temperament of mankind ; the whole 
world. 

(2) The Place of Biblical Theology.— -Biblical Theology 
belongs to the department of Exegetical Theology as a 
higher exegesis completing the exegetical process, and 
presenting the essential material and principles of the 
other departments of theology. 

The boundaries between Exegetical and Historical 
Theology are not so sharply defined as those between 
either of them and Systematic Theology. All Histori- 
cal Theology has to deal with sources, and in this re- 
spect must consider them in their variety and unity as 
well as development ; and hence many theologians com- 



76 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

bine Exegetical Theology and Historical Theology un- 
der one head — Historical Theology. It is important, 
however, to draw the distinction, for this reason. The 
sources of Biblical Theology are in different relation 
from the sources of a history of doctrine, inasmuch as 
they constitute a body of divine revelation, and in this 
respect to be kept distinct from all other sources, even 
cotemporary and of the same nation. ' They have an 
absolute authority which no other sources can have. 
The stress is to be laid less upon their historical devel- 
opment than upon them as an organic body of revela- 
tion, and this stress upon their importance as sources 
not only for historical development, but also for dog- 
matic reconstruction and practical application, requires 
that the special study of them should be exalted to a 
separate discipline and a distinct branch of theology. 

Now in the department of Exegetical Theology, Bib- 
lical Theology occupies the highest place, the latest and 
crowning achievement. It is a higher exegesis com- 
pleting the Exegetical Process. All other branches of 
Exegetical Theology are presupposed by it. The Bib- 
lical Literature must first be studied as sacred litera- 
ture. All questions of date of writing, integrity, con- 
struction, style, and authorship must be determined by 
the principles of the Higher Criticism. Biblical Can- 
onics determines the extent and authority of the vari- 
ous writings that are to be regarded as composing the 
sacred canon, and discriminates them from all other 
writings by the criticism of the believing spirit enlight- 
ened and guided by the Holy Spirit in the Church. 
Biblical Textual Criticism ascertains the true text of 
the writings in the study of MSS. and versions and 
citations, and seeks to present it in its pure primitive 
forms. Biblical Hermeneutics lays down the rules of 



THE PLACE OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 77 

Biblical Interpretation, and Biblical Exegesis applies 
these rules to the various particular passages of the sa- 
cred Scriptures. Now Biblical Theology accepts all 
these rules and results thus determined and applied. 
It is not its office to go into the detailed examination 
of the verse and the section, but it must accept the re- 
sults of a thorough exegesis and criticism in order to 
advance thereon and thereby to its own proper work of 
higher exegesis ; namely, rising from the comparison of 
verse with verse, and paragraph with paragraph, where 
simple exegesis is employed, to the still more difficult 
and instructive comparison of writing with writing, au- 
thor with author, period with period, until by generaliz- 
ation and synthesis the theology of the Bible is at- 
tained as an organicwhole. 

Biblical Theology is thus the culmination of Exeget- 
ical Theology, and must be in an important relation to 
all other branches of theology. For Historical Theol- 
ogy it presents the great principles of the various periods 
of history, the fundamental and controlling tendencies 
which, springing from human nature and operating in 
all the religions of the world, find their proper expres- 
sion and satisfaction in the normal development of 
Divine Revelation, but which, breaking loose from these 
salutary bonds, become perverted and distorted into 
abnormal forms, producing false and heretical principles 
and radical errors. And so in the Biblical unity of these 
tendencies Biblical Theology presents the ideal unity 
for the Church and the Christian in all times of the 
world's history. For v Systematic Theology, Biblical 
Theology affords the holy material to be used in Bib- 
lical Apologetics, Dogmatics, and Ethics, the funda- 
mental and controlling material out of which that 
systematic structure must be built which will express 



78 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

the intellectual and moral needs of the particular age, 
fortify the Church for offence and defence in the strug- 
gles with the anti-Christian world, and give unity to its 
life, its efforts, and its dogmas in all ages. For Practi- 
cal Theology it presents the various types of religious 
experience and of doctrinal and ethical ideas which must 
be skilfully applied to the corresponding differences of 
type which exist in all times, in all' churches, in all 
lands, and indeed in all religions and races of mankind. 
Biblical Theology is indeed the Irenic force which will 
do much to harmonize the antagonistic forces and va- 
rious departments of theology, and bring about that 
reconciliation within the churchy which is the greatest 
requisite of our times. 

(3) Method of Biblical Theology. — The method em- 
ployed by Biblical Theology is a blending of the genetic 
and the inductive methods. The method of Biblical 
Theology arises out of the nature of the discipline and 
its place in Theological Encyclopaedia. As it must 
show the Theology of the Bible in its historic formation, 
ascertain its genesis, the laws of its development from 
germinal principles, the order of its progress in every 
individual writer, and from writer to writer and age to 
age in the successive periods and in the whole Bible, it 
must employ the genetic method. It is this genesis 
which is becoming more and more important in our 
discipline, and is indeed the chief point of discussion in 
our day. Can all be explained by a natural genesis, or 
must the supernatural be called in ? The various Ra- 
tionalistic efforts to explain the genesis of the Biblical 
types of doctrine in their variety and their combination 
in a unity in the Scriptures are extremely unsatisfactory 
and unscientific. With all the resemblances to other 
religions, the Biblical religion is so different that its 



METHOD OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 79 

differences must be explained, and these can only be 
explained by the claims of the sacred writers themselves, 
that God Himself in various forms of Theophany and 
Christophany revealed Himself to initiate and to guide 
the religion of the Bible in its various movements and 
stages. Mosaism centres about the great Theophany of 
Sinai, as Christianity centres about the Resurrection of 
Jesus Christ, and the life, death, ascension, and second 
advent therein involved. It is now the problem of 
Biblical Theology, as it has traced the Theology of the 
Jewish Christian type to the Theophany of Pentecost, 
and of the Pauline to the Christophany on the way to 
Damascus, so to trace the Johannean type and the vari- 
ous Old Testament types to corresponding supernatural 
initiation. The Johannean type may be traced to the 
Christophanies of Patmos.* The Old Testament is full 
of Theophanies which originate particular Covenants 
and initiate all the great movements in the history of 
Israel. 

As it has to exhibit the unity in the variety of the 
various conceptions and statements of the writings and 
authors of every different type, style, and character, and 
by comparison generalize to its results, Biblical Theol- 
ogy must employ the inductive method and the synthet- 
ic process. This inductive method is the true method 
of Exegetical Theology. The details of Exegesis have 
been greatly enriched by this method during the pres- 
ent century, especially by the labors of German divines, 
and in most recent times by numerous laborers in Great 
Britain and America. * But the majority of the laborers 

* We regard the Apocalypse as the earliest of the Johannean writings. The 
Christophanies therein described had been granted to the apostle prior to the 
composition of the Gospel, so that the Gospel was written under their influence 
still more even than under the recollection of the association with Jesus during 
His earthly ministry. 



80 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

in Biblical Theology have devoted their strength to 
the working out of the historical principle of our disci- 
pline. Yet within the various types and special doc- 
trines a large amount of higher exegesis has been 
accomplished by Weiss, Riehm, Schultz, Diestel, Weif- 
fenbach, and others. But the highest exegesis in the 
comparison of types and their arrangement in an or- 
ganic system with a unity and determining principle out 
of which all originate, and to which they return their 
fruitage, remains comparatively undeveloped. Indeed 
the study of the particular types, especially in the Old 
Testament, must be conducted still further and to more 
substantial results ere the highest exegesis can fulfil its 
task. 

The genetic and the inductive methods must indeed 
combine in order to the best results. They must co- 
operate in every writing, in the treatment of every 
author, of every period and of the whole. They must 
blend in harmony throughout. On their proper combi- 
nation the excellence of a system of Biblical Theology 
depends. An undue emphasis of either will make the 
system defective and inharmonious. 

(4) The system and divisions of Biblical Theology. — 
These are determined partly by the material itself, but 
chiefly by the methods of dealing with it. We must make 
the divisions so simple that they may be adapted to the 
most elementary conceptions, and yet comprehensive 
enough to embrace the most fully developed conceptions, 
and also so as to be capable of a simple and natural 
subdivision in the advancing periods. In order to this 
we must find the dominant principle of the entire revela- 
tion and make our historical and our inductive divisions 
in accordance with it. The Divine revelation itself 
might seem to be this determining factor, so that we 



THE SYSTEM AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY, gl 

should divide historically by the historical development 
of that revelation, and synthetically by its most charac- 
teristic features. But this divine revelation was made 
to intelligent man and involved thereby an active appro- 
priation of it on his part, both as to its form and sub- 
stance, so that from this point of view we might divide 
historically in accordance with the great epochs of the 
appropriation of divine revelation, and synthetically by 
the characteristic features of that appropriation. From 
either of these points of view, however, there might be 
— there naturally would be, an undue emphasis of the 
one over against the other at the expense of a complete 
and harmonious representation. We need some princi- 
ple that will enable us to combine the subject and the 
object — God and man — in the unity of its conception. 
Such a principle is happily afforded us in the Revelation 
itself, so distinctly brought out that it has been histori- 
cally recognized in the names given to the two great sec- 
tions of the Scriptures, the Old and the New Testa- 
ments or Covenants. The Covenant is the fundamental 
principle of the divine revelation, to which the divine 
revelation commits its treasures and from which man 
continually draws upon them. The Covenant has a great 
variety of forms in the sacred Scriptures, but the most 
essential and comprehensive form is that assumed in the 
Mosaic Covenant at Sinai which becomes the Old Cove- 
nant, pre-eminently, and over against that is placed the 
New Covenant of the Messiah Jesus Christ, so that the 
great historical division becomes the Theology of the Old 
Covenant and the Theology of the New Covenant. 

The Covenant must also determine the synthetic di- 
visions. The Covenant is a union and communion ef- 
fected between God and Man. It involves a personal 
relationship which it originates and maintains by cer- 



§2 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

tain events and institutions. This is Religion. The 
Covenant and its relations, man apprehends as an intel- 
ligent being with meditation, reflection, and reasoning. 
All this he comprehends in doctrines, which he appre- 
hends and believes and maintains as his faith. These 
doctrines will embrace the three general topics of God, 
of Man, and of Redemption. The Covenant still further 
has to do with man as a moral being, imposing moral 
obligations upon him with reference to God and man 
and the creatures of God. All these are comprehended 
under the general term Ethics. These distinctions ap- 
ply equally well to all the periods of divine revelation ; 
they are simple, they are comprehensive, they are all- 
pervading. Indeed they interpenetrate one another, so 
that many prefer to combine the three under the one 
term Theology, and then treat of God and Man and the 
union of God and Man in redemption, in each division 
by itself with reference to religious, ethical, and doc- 
trinal questions ; but it is easier and more thorough- 
going to keep them apart, even at the expense of look- 
ing at the same thing at times successively from three 
different points of view. 

From these more general divisions we may advance 
to such subdivisions, as may be justified in the suc- 
cessive periods of Biblical Theology, both on the his- 
toric and synthetic sides, and, indeed, without anticipa- 
tion. 

The relation between the historical and the synthetic 
divisions maybe variously viewed. Thus Ewald, in his 
Biblical Theology, makes the historical divisions so en- 
tirely subordinate as to treat of each topic of theology 
by itself in its history. The difficulty of this method 
is, that it does not sufficiently show the relative devel- 
opment of doctrines, and their constant action and re- 



THE SYSTEM AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 33 

action upon one another in the successive periods. It 
may be of advantage for thoroughness in any one depart- 
ment to take that topic by itself and work it out in its 
historical development ; but in a comprehensive course 
of Biblical Theology the interests of the whole cannot 
be sacrificed for the particular sections. They must be 
adjusted to one another in their historical development 
in the particular periods. Hence it will be necessary to 
determine in each period : (1) the development of each 
particular doctrine by itself, as it starts from the gen- 
eral principle, and then (2) to sum up the general re- 
sults before passing over into another period. 

It will also be found that Theology does not unfold 
in one single line, but in several, from several different 
points of view, and in accordance with several different 
types. It will therefore be necessary on the one side 
ever to keep these types distinct, and yet to show their 
unity as one organism. Thus in the Pentateuch the 
great types of the Jahvist, the two Elohists, and the 
Deuteronomist, will be distinctly traced until they com- 
bine in the one organism of our Pentateuch, presenting 
the fundamental Thorah of Israel. In the historical 
books the Prophetic and Levitical historians will be 
distinguished and compared for a higher unity. The 
three great types — the psalmists, wise men, and proph- 
ets — will be discriminated, the variations within the 
types carefully studied and compared, and then the 
types themselves brought into harmony, and at last the 
whole Old Testament presented as an organic whole. 
The New Testament will then be considered in the 
forerunners of Christ ; then the four types in which the 
evangelists present the Theology of Jesus, each by it- 
self, in comparison with the others, and as a whole. 
The Apostolic Theology will be traced from its origin 



g4 BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 

at Pentecost in its subsequent division into the three 
great types, the Jewish Christian of Peter, James, and 
Jude ; the Gentile Christian of Paul, Luke, and the 
epistle to the Hebrews; and, finally, the Johannean of 
the gospels, epistle, and apocalypse of John ; and the 
whole considered in the unity of the New Testament ; 
and then, as the last thing, the whole Bible will be consid- 
ered, showing not only the unity of the theology of 
Christ and His apostles, but also the unity of the the- 
ology of Moses and David and all the prophets, with 
the theology of Jesus and His apostles, as each distinct 
theology takes its place in the advancing system of di- 
vine revelation, all conspiring to the completion of a 
perfect, harmonious, symmetrical organism, the infal- 
lible expression of God's will, character, and being to 
His favored children. At the same time, the religion 
of each period and of the whole Bible will be set in the 
midst of the other religions of the world, so that it will 
appear as the divine grace ever working in humanity, 
and its sacred records as the true lamp of the world, 
holding forth the light of life to all the nations of the 
world. 



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